


Irreversible

by Aelys_Althea



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Canon Implied Child Abuse, Canon-Typical Violence, Cold!Laurent, Damen Is Desperate, Gen, Heartache, International Diplomacy, M/M, Oracles, Pre-Canon, Regret, Sword Fighting, THIS IS NOT A FIXER, War violence, time jumps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-05 20:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11585376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aelys_Althea/pseuds/Aelys_Althea
Summary: If he could go back. If he could change the past. If he could fix the ultimate wrong he'd committed, it would all be better. Wouldn't it?That was what Damen had thought. It was what he'd hoped, what he'd sought, what he'd struggled desperately to discover could have been. The reality, however, was nothing if not brutally honest.Sometimes, fate plays forth for a reason. Damen realises that such reasons made a mess of a whole lot of things - but it could have been so much worse.





	1. Chapter 1

_"Hold out your hand."_

_He did. He did in a heartbeat, without a second thought. Damen had to know._

_"Speak your query, Akielos King. What is it you long to know?"_

_Damen had questions. So many questions. How to become a greater king; what he could do for his people; how he should best approach the delegation from the Vask empire when their party arrived come spring; where he should pool his resources for the drought prophesised for three years hence._

_He didn't ask. Damen didn't ask any of that. There was one question that he longed to know the answer to, and that answer lay not in the future but in the past._

_Squeezing the oracle's pale, thin hand, he took a deep breath and sighed out his words in a choked gasp. "How? How could it have been different?"_

* * *

A crash drew his eyes snapping open, and just in time. In the confusion around him, the chaos that assaulted him, the incomprehension of just _where he was_ , Damen only just managed to raise his sword to stop the descending blow. He blocked, parried, then flung his attacker away from him. A second later, his arcing slice split the man in two to topple to the ground.

An instant later and another was upon him, a savage roar preceding his enemy's attack before it was lost between the crash of blade on blade.

Then another.

And another.

Damen felled them all. He fought in an instinctive frenzy, the smell of blood metallic and sharp in his nostrils, the echoes of cries resounding amidst the cries of pain and battle fury and terror. The blur of splattered armour and grimacing faces and flailing limbs as they fought in what was more a desperate attempt to survive than to achieve victory was a riot of terror.

Damen knew that feeling. He'd known it long ago, before the experience of leadership forbade such thoughts and cast them into negligibility. When he downed another foe, when the man in grimed armour rapidly staining with ruddy spurts of his life gushing forth from the wound at his chin, Damen paused. That was the way of battle: a furious, exhausting, seemingly endless fight of confrontation after confrontation, and then a sudden reprieve. A pause as though the world was taking a breath, and though the battle still raged around him Damen had a moment to pause himself.

He looked. He observed his own men in their familiar leather skirts and sleeveless breastplates, helmets firmly strapped onto heads pouring torrents of sweat. He saw the swing of his men's gladius', the whirl of the iron swords streaked with filth and blood as they slashed through the air. He saw the more slender _xiphos_ of the hoplites, their weapons drawn when the cumbersome dory of their initial charge became impractical for close combat. Damen could even see discarded spears simply dropped in favour of the blades; there was little use in carrying them in such circumstances.

But more than that, he saw _them_. He saw their opponents, their foes, the familiar, sleek, fitted, and more wholly covering armour of the Veretians that battled his men. And he _knew_. He knew then exactly where he was.

Damen would never forget the battle of Marlas. Never.

He didn't know when it was. He didn't know how long they'd been fighting, though his body told him it had been long. His nineteen-year-old body, he realised, and was struck dumb for a moment before forcibly drawn from his stupor and back into the fighting. He hadn't the time for this. He hadn't the time to consider how he'd gotten here, how it was possible, how… how…

_The dry, wrinkled hand squeezed his fingers tightly, urging, forcing, and he couldn't look away from the dark pits of her gaze. She was pushing him, drawing him towards…_

He couldn't remember, but Damen knew now wasn't the time to try. He had a battle to win. No, not to win. To survive. He could think of the how later.

Swinging his own gladius, Damen stuck at the skull of his enemy and had to bite back on the sharp pain that speared through his chest as he did so. The Veretians. They were enemies once, but now… they hadn't been _his_ enemies for years. The Veretians were as much his people as those of Akielos were. Or almost as much, anyway. They were Laurent's people, and that was as good as.

Laurent was…

Damen swung and ducked, coming up sharply and ramming his sword into his opponent's gut. He spun as some sixth sense within him screamed at him to defend his back and caught the assault just in time, flinging the soldier to the ground. Damen saw his elites spread just behind him, each engaged in their own fierce battle, faces twisted into concentration and almost anger. He saw the momentary fear on a Veretian's face as he slaughtered him where he stood. He saw the wave of his enemy who weren't his enemy anymore, they _weren't_ , and fell to mowing them down alongside his men.

And then he saw Kastor.

His brother, like the majority of their troops, had been bereft of his horse. He was bedecked more richly in bloody reds than the worked leather of armour or the deep grey of iron, his scarlet cape torn and tattered yet still flapping like a flag from his shoulders. His own troops roiled around him as he fought barely fifty paces from Damen, slicing through the Veretians that steadfastly maintained their resistance. Not that they would win. Not against Damen's men, against Kastor's.

Kastor caught sight of him. Just for a moment, across the distance between them, and it was as though none of what Damen knew had happened. As though Kastor hadn't betrayed him, hadn't sold him into slavery, hadn't tried to kill him time and time again. The fierce light in his dark eyes was radiant even though Damen could barely meet his gaze across the battlefield and the soldiers between them.

"Damen!" Kastor cried, and with a jab of his own gladius pointed him in the direction before them both.

Damen sliced down an opponent, throwing him to the ground before he could spare a moment to turn to where his brother directed. When he did, his heart seized in his chest for a moment, horror rising to freeze it solidly.

Gold. Gold armour and a windmilling sword. The Veretian swordsman danced and spun through his foes, weaving intricate arcs that raked through his opponents like a knife through butter. Damen had the terror, the mind-numbing moment of fear in which he thought nothing but _No, he can't be here, he can't_ , before reality slammed into him with the force of a charging horse.

Not Laurent. Auguste.

Damen knew in that moment what Kastor had meant. What he'd directed with that single barked word. "Damen!" meant attack. It meant fulfilling the commitment that he'd spoken of only to Kastor, had barely mentioned to ground himself further in his resolution. "Damen!" meant 'spear the hydra through the heart and regardless of how many heads have spawned the body will fail.

"Damen!" meant kill Auguste. Kill him like Damen had so many years ago. As he was supposed to _now_.

Damen knew he wouldn't. He couldn't. It didn't matter that it would mean victory for his men. It didn't matter that not doing so would leave Kastor gaping and furious, likely resulting in a duel between brothers as he demanded recompense for the slight against his honour. If they won, that was. If they would win without the loss of the Veretian prince.

But Prince and King – both Auguste and Aleron – were still alive. They were still alive, and it was a reality that Damen had longed for more times than he could count. For years he had felt nothing but regret for killing Auguste, for the part he'd played in causing Laurent unprecedented pain. Regret for forcing him to endure all that had followed as a result.

He couldn't, he _wouldn't_ , do so again. He didn't even truly understand where he was, didn't understand how he was here, but he wouldn't do it. Not this time.

So Damen turned from his brother. He wouldn't lower his sword but neither would he charge the golden prince to tear him from the world in a fierce battle that would leave the Veretians with their knees cut from beneath them. He wouldn't do that.

Damen fought. He fought and he killed, but he didn't charge at Auguste. He grit his teeth as he heard his brother's sharp, demanding cry once more, but he didn't glance his way. Damen swept those around him to the ground and fought the urge to flinch at each gurgling cry of those who would, in years to come, be _his_ people as much as they were Laurent's.

He couldn't take their prince away from them. Not from the Veretians. Not from the thirteen year old boy who Damen hadn't even met yet.

But it didn't matter. Damen should have known that the fates had decided, that he was little more than an instrument in their malicious hands. Damen fought, but he still managed to catch sight of Kastor. He saw over the shoulder of an opponent speared on his gladius that Kastor had broken from the cocoon of his own men and charged across the battlefield. He saw him tear through the Veretians as though they were stalks of wheat before his scythe. He saw him throw himself at the golden prince.

Damen struggled. He fought so hard that it was a miracle any of the Veretians that surrounded him even had the nerve to hold their stance. Damen barely considered cutting through them – his shoulder as he charged in Kastor's wake was weapon enough. And yet still he was too slow. The distance was too far. Damen stumbled in his flight, barely pausing to sweep a slicing cut, to block with a whirling parry, but still he was too slow.

The fight was fierce, as fierce and furious as that Damen had fought against Auguste years before. And yet just as had happened the first time, it was short. In the midst of battle, duels never lasted long. Damen pleaded, silently and perhaps aloud, for his brother to stop, that he didn't realise what he was doing, that he couldn't possibly imagine the disaster that would result from such a death.

Kastor didn't hear him. He didn't hear, or perhaps he didn't care.

Before Damen's eyes, barely twenty paces away, for the second time he saw Auguste of Vere topple to the ground. He was a good fighter. A great fighter, even. But Kastor… he was better.

Damen stumbled to a halt in his charge. It was likely only Kastor's men that swarmed around him, racing to reinforce their triumphant prince, that saved him from losing his head to a heartbroken Veretian blade. Cries of horror, of fury, of overwhelming grief arose as the Veretians saw their idol fall. Damen silently added his own mourning to theirs.

This… it should never have happened. Not the first time and certainly not this time.

This… this _shouldn't_ have happened. Damen hadn't wanted Auguste to die so it shouldn't have…

He was distantly aware that Kastor was straightening from his killing blow. He was aware that his brother drew breath before raising his sword and uttering a fierce cry of victory. Damen saw detachedly that Kastor noticed him, standing frozen within calling distance, and he saw the moment that his brother turned towards him. That he smiled wide and just as fierce as his cry had been, the blood smearing his cheeks affording him an almost manic cast.

Damen saw it all but he couldn't look away from Auguste. He couldn't help but think of what it meant, of what would follow, of Laurent and all that would come as a result of it.

This was never meant to happen. And yet for the second time, Damen hadn't been able to stop it.

* * *

 

"Father, please, if you would only consider –"

"You clearly do not understand, Damianos," Theomedes said. Damen's full name was spoken as much with exasperation as confusion. Confusion for his persistence or his stance, Damen didn't know. He didn't much care. "One does not submit for surrender nor even accept neutrality when one has the upper ground."

Damen clenched his teeth fiercely to withhold the torrent of objections that threatened to spill forth. Instead of snapping a demand, he pressed his hands only more firmly into the table before him, the round surface in the centre of the low-ceilinged general's tent that depicted maps and figurines carved from wood in representative shapes. The general's tent was wholly minimalistic, including only what was absolutely necessary, and Damen and his father were two of only a few attendants standing within. Damen was the one who monopolised Theomedes' attention, however. Theomedes' and Kastor's both, though a number of Akielon generals were similarly staring at him with fixed frowns and folded arms.

Swallowing, Damen sought to swallow the urge to hiss and spit his frustration. _This is not how it should be_ , his mind longed to voice, and he saw Auguste falling time and time again. He'd never been able to forget it, not after that first time he was nineteen when the Veretian prince had fallen to Damen's own blade, but this time he'd been afforded a different perspective. This time he'd watched it as a spectator and had understood the true horror of what those actions meant.

For hours now, Damen had been able to feel nothing but nausea roiling in his gut, bile creeping sickeningly into the back of his throat. He didn't know how to fix this. He didn't know how to fix any of it, how to make peace with the Veretians, how to end the war, how to stop the killing of those who would be, who _should_ be in years to come, his people too.

He didn't know how… how to… for Laurent…

But he would try. Damen would damn well try, even if it would cause him shame before his father's generals. He didn't cared. The situation was uncanny, and for hours he'd withstood it in confusion, but that didn't matter. Knowing what he did, with years of experience and the backlash of what was to come, it didn't matter. Damen had to make it right.

Curling his fingers onto the polished wood, he swallowed the sharp, bitter taste once more. "It doesn't have to be this way," he ground out, his voice low and little more than a growl. "We don't have to fight them. There should be another way we could –"

Kastor's sharp step towards him silenced Damen immediately. He wasn't intimidated by his brother, but there was none of the awe or hero-worship he'd once held for him years ago. It was wariness as much as anything that stilled Damen's tongue. How long had Kastor seen him as nothing but a rival? Damen loved his brother, had always loved him, even after his death and what he'd done, but how long?

There was nothing to suggest such rivalry in Kastor's frowning gaze as he stepped towards Damen, however. Like the rest of the generals, he wore a mask of confusion and just a little exasperation. "Damen, what are you saying? Are you really suggesting we parley with the Veretians? Surely you understand they're nothing but sneaky, underhanded bastards who strike at the back before the front. You saw what they did at the last parley. They can't be trusted –"

"They're just fighting the war how they can," Damen said. His sharp words immediately cut Kastor off, and he knew how it sounded. He was defending the manipulative methods of the Veretians that so vastly differed to the honourable and direct approach of Damen's people.

Honourable. Damen had thought his people honourable once, and still did for the most part. When he stared at Kastor, though, he wasn't so sure. Ignoring the indignation on the faces of the generals, Damen shifted his gaze from Kastor to Theomedes. "It doesn't need to be this way. If the Veretians are so near to being overwhelmed then they'll accept our terms, they'll accept anything that we pose to them. They must."

"Why would we?" Kastor said. "Why would we when we could just obliterate them? Erase them like a stain beneath a mop?"

Damen fought the urge to growl once more, noting the thoughtful and frowning nods of the generals around him. _They have no idea_ , he thought. And this wasn't working. He needed to be faster than this, before everything else fell to disaster. First Auguste had fallen and then… Damen didn't know at what point expressly King Aleron of Vere would fall, but he knew it was in battle. That the 'stray arrow' would use the cover of an attack to wipe out that king. It hadn't already happened, surely. _Surely_ Damen would have heard of it by now.

Which meant that he had to stop it. Damen had to stop that one, final disaster, and if that meant stemming any further fights then so be it.

"We don't need to fight," he said.

"But we do," Kastor countered. "It's what we always do. Open war is the most honest way to reach an accord."

"Oh, so the most honest way is through mass bloodshed and violence?"

Kastor's frown deepened. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying we don't need to do this." Damen pressed a fist into the table, fingers curled. "We've already won, Kastor. The Veretians just haven't realised it. We only need to _tell_ them. There's no need –"

"Prince Damianos, this is unnecessary," one of the generals, Pector, took a step forwards. He was a big man, burly and thick with muscles as all of them were. Not quite as tall as Damen but at nineteen Damen knew he would have once been bowed beneath the weight of years and experience of his elder. Even at such an age, he hadn't been afflicted by youthful bravado; he'd learned long ago that vitality didn't necessary overcome experience. Not at all. Kastor had taught him that, and he wore the scar as a reminder of the lesson. "We will lose few in this final battle, and it will not only boost the morale of the troops but also enforce our position against the Veretians for future conquests."

" _This_ is unnecessary," Damen insisted, jabbing a finger into the table. It was a struggle not to swipe it clear in his frustration. "Why would we waste men and resources when we don't need to?"

"Damianos," his father began.

Damen ploughed through his words. "Have we not fought long enough? The Veretians are already worn by the loss of their prince. Surely you don't believe they'll withstand a further blow."

"My Prince," Pector said sharply.

"Why fight when we don't need to? People will _die_ , and it is _unnecessary_." Damen didn't realise he was nearly shouting until his fist came down on the table and rocked the figurines positioned on the map from their standing poses. The tent fell into silence, all eyes fastened upon him.

Damen didn't care. It wasn't his men that he was worried about. Not the Akielons. He knew they would win, that there would be minimal losses to their troops.

It was the Veretians that concerned him. It was the life of the king and the future of the prince who was at present no more than a boy that left him cold with fear yet hot-blooded with desperation. Damen would fight with his words as he had never been taught, as he'd learned from Laurent after years of thinly veiled awe for the way that he could twist and dominate a situation with the barest of suggestions. Damen had always been able to rally the troops, had always been capable of inspiring enthusiasm and determination in his men, but dissuading others? Drawing them from their resolutions into an alternate way of thinking?

He'd never been good at that, but he would try. He would damn-well try.

"Damen, what has gotten into you?" Kastor finally said into the temporary hush. His frown was so low that his brows nearly hid his eyes. His jaw was set firmly, an indication that he was not only confused but growing increasingly angry. At Damen, clearly, and at what he was suggesting. Perhaps he'd never been content with listening to the opinions of his younger brother.

Before Damen could speak, there was the sound of the tent flaps being swept aside and running feet skidding to a halt. As one, the generals, Damen, and his brother and father all turned towards the intruder.

It was a runner, a guard from the perimeter, and still carrying his hoplite spear, _xiphos_ sheathed at his belt. He was panting heavily, sweat from the heat of the afternoon dribbling in runnels through the grime on his face. He tipped his head in a slight bow, just long enough to be respectful, before speaking. "Your Majesties, generals, they're moving."

Immediately, all annoyance and confusion was swept from the generals and replaced by sharp attentiveness. Damen could feel it himself, and he knew. He didn't even turn away from the runner as his hands curled into fists at his sides. _No…_

"Formation?" one of the generals barked. "Pace? Direction? Come, boy give us answers."

The runner flinched slightly beneath the undivided attention of his superiors. He swallowed audibly before replying. "Away, sir. They're going away."

_No. No, it can't have been…_

"Away? What do you mean away? They're retreating?"

"Yes, sir, they're in retreat. Drawing away fast, they are, like scolded pups with their tails between their legs." The runner gave a smile that was somewhere between smug and nervous, and Damen immediately wanted to slap it off his chin. "They've got their banners raised, general, sir. Their king is dead."

A moment of silence reigned once more before Theomedes stepped towards the runner. His voice was low when he spoke. "King Aleron is dead?"

The runner nodded, his smile widening. "Yes, Your Majesty. He and the prince both. They're dead."

Another moment of stunned surprise ensued. Then it was broken, sharply, cruelly, by an outburst of exuberance. Barks of laughter and murmured delight resounded throughout the tent, and the scuffle of feet was accompanied by the clap of hands onto shoulders. As though they'd won. As though they'd triumphed, and the death of the Veretian king was of their own doing rather than an act of underhanded treachery from the king's own brother himself.

Damen felt his heart seize before sinking into the pit of his belly. He could only stare at the runner, stare as the soldier's smile widened to a grin as his gaze jumped between generals, princes, and king as though proud for what he'd induced.

Damen didn't look over his shoulder. He couldn't even pretend to partake in the merriment. It was all he could do not to close his eyes and sag.

He'd tried. He'd tried to stop it, but it hadn't worked. Somehow, Damen realised he'd already known he wouldn't have been able to change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: What did you think? Predictable? Interesting? Totally UNinteresting?  
> Please let me know with a comment! I've got chapter 2 already lined up so hopefully shouldn't take too long to post that one up next. Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

_"My king, is this really necessary?"_

_Damen didn't turn as he climbed the steps to the temple, striding past the thick pillars bathed in the first hint of morning light. It was an impressive structure – breath-taking, even, as was the only building of any importance in Delpha. The columns that supported the triangular roof were greater even than those in the palace of Ios, the statue of the god of prophecy himself larger than life by ten times at least. That statue stood, white-eyed and staring, face wise yet somehow youthful, and those eyes seemed to follow as Damen climbed towards the site of the oracle herself._

_No one came to Delpha unless for this reason. The draw of the chasm alongside the temple, the threatening calls that had coaxed more than one curious soul into its depths, was ominous enough._

_Damen glanced over his shoulder at Nikandros as he alighted onto the top step. Nikandros paused three below him, staring up at him with a mixture of concern and resignation that he frequently adopted in such cases. Damen didn't reprimand his friend but merely bowed his head in a nod. "Yes, it is necessary."_

_"But why?"_

_Turning from Nikandros, Damen lifted his gaze towards the god of prophecy, now looming ten times his height above him. Should the statue be knocked down, it would likely suffice as a bridge to cross the chasm it would fall across. No one would touch the statue, though. The Temple of Delpha was just as, if not more, sacred than the halls of Kingsmeet._

_"Because I have to know," was all he said._

_"But why?"_

_Damen closed his eyes. Nikandros wouldn't understand. He wouldn't understand the guilt that rested upon Damen's shoulders, that weighted him down each year as that fateful day passed time and time again. He was never at Laurent's side when the anniversary passed; Damen suspected that Laurent ensured it was that way, if only because he didn't think anyone else could understand._

_But Damen had to know. He had to know so that he could face the past and understand his wrongdoings. To admit his failings. To see the possibilities for what could have been had his sword not fallen. Nikandros wouldn't understand that._

_"I just have to know," he said simply. Then Damen opened his eyes and strode into the temple. The sound of his sandals on the polished marble floor was barely a whisper. His footsteps alone; Nikandros didn't follow._

* * *

One year.

One whole year it had taken of Damen wearing steadily away at his father, convincing the king's men, all but begging Kastor into allowance, into finally listening to him. A whole year of growing agitation, an itch that couldn't be scratched and a twitch that wasn't relieved by his nearly constant bouts in the practice yard. People had noticed, Damen knew. Nikandros had noticed, and by the _Gods_ but he looked young. It still unnerved Damen at times. They both were – both barely men themselves. That much Damen had come to realise over the past year, if the why and the 'everything else' still remained a mystery.

Time seemed to pass differently. To flow strangely. He'd realised that, too. In one moment, days seemed to pass in seconds, while in the next, those very moments dragged eternally. Damen wasn't sure why. He wasn't sure if it was because of his agitation or because...

Because of the oracle. He remembered that now as he'd been all but unable to recall at the Battle of Marlas. He remembered travelling to Delpha, Nikandros at his side, and climbing the steps into the oracle's temple. He remembered grasping her ancient hand that even in its age was been steady, asking the question that even he didn't know how to voice. What was it that had happened? _How_ had it happened? Damen wasn't sure, didn't even know what to think, for he couldn't believe that he was truly drawn more than ten years into the past. He didn't believe it, even if all indicators pointed to it being so.

Damen couldn't believe that the life he'd lived, what had become of both Akielos and Vere, no longer existed. But that didn't mean that he wouldn't try to change how it had been. It didn't mean that he wouldn't try to fix that past.

Damen hadn't killed Auguste. He hadn't raised his sword against him, but the prince had still fallen. The Veretian King had still fallen, too, and since that fateful battle at Marlas, word from Vere spoke of tightening borders, of rigidly-enforced agoraphobia and the enforcing of the Regent's laws.

The Regent. Just the very thought of the man turned Damen's gut as he was so prone to experiencing of late. It made it only worse that most of the nobility of Akielos believed the Regent to be just, fair, a good influence upon Vere, and the possible catalyst for future changing attitudes.

Damen knew better. He knew far better, and he wanted nothing more than to kill the bastard.

Not that he could. He'd tried, if not for expressly that reason, to travel to Vere at the earliest opportunity. He didn't know what to expect, what he intended to do - kidnap the crown prince? Tear at the walls until the Regent admitted his heinous crimes? - but that hardly mattered. Damen couldn't let himself dwell on it for too long or else he started to see red. His muscles would tense and he often ended up breaking something.

Damen had lost days in seconds when that happened on more than one occasion.

But his father Theomedes had allowed it. Finally, after months of requests that were barely short of begs, he'd taken up Damen's suggestion to make nice with Vere. It might have been too soon, for less than twelve months after the Battle of Marlas, the death of half of Vere's royal family was still fresh in the minds of all. Yet the king had allowed it. And since, the Regent had similarly bowed his head in acquiescence.

Theomedes turned his attention solely upon Damen when the emissary bearing the news of their attempt to 'make nice' returned with a favourable response. It was as though neither Kastor nor any of the other lords, ladies or councillors in the room existed. He stared for a long moment before speaking.

"Well, Damianos," he said slowly, using Damen's full name as he always did outside of a personal setting. His words resounded though the sparse reception hall, bouncing off the marble floors and polished walls as would the voice of an orator on a podium. "You have your wish."

Damen could hardly refrain from gasping and bowing his head in utter gratitude. He settled for tipping his chin just slightly, respectfully. "Yes, Father."

"I will not pretend to understand your desperation for such an end. It makes little sense to me, and believe me that I would not be pursuing such an approach had myself and the Regent not deemed it favourable."

"No, Father."

"But being as it is." Theomedes paused and there was nothing but a slight tightening around his eyes to suggest his scepticism. "We will approach this offering for the advantage it may yet provide us."

"Advantage," Kastor said with a snort, but it was quiet enough that the mutter could be easily overlooked and ignored. It was no secret that Kastor thought little of the Veretians.

Theomedes didn't spare him a glance; it was truly as though no one in the room existed but Damen. Theomedes was a strong figure, tall and broad and with barely a hint of grey in his hair to suggest his age. Should he have denied Damen's request then, even with years of experience behind him, years from when he'd stood as King himself, Damen knew he would have been hard pressed to break through such denial.

"I leave this in your hands, Damianos," Theomedes said after another long pause. "Put your newfound persuasion skills to the test and show me your commitment."

That was how Theomedes phrased it. His 'newfound' persuasion skills, as though to tag it as such would supply an explanation for those skills that Damen had never possessed before. It was how they all saw it, Damen knew, and only those closest to him – Nikandros, primarily - saw fit to question further. Damen regretted that he couldn't provide a better explanation. Who would believe him if he tried? Damen wasn't even sure what he would be attempting to convince of.

"Father, I really must protest," Kastor abruptly said, a sharp edge to his tone. Damen was unsure whether it was that he knew of a possible future to come and so heard it or if he was simply misinterpreting, but he thought that sharpness sounded almost angry. Accusing, even. "Damianos shouldn't be sent upon this endeavour. Not alone and not without -"

"I won't be alone, Kastor," Damen interrupted, and it was a struggle not to frown at his brother. He had mixed feelings as it was; Kastor had been nothing but the affectionate brother Damen remembered him for in his youth in recent months. "I will have my own men with me."

"You know what I mean, Damen," Kastor said, shifting his frown towards him. It appeared more annoyed that truly angry, however. "You're barely twenty, and the Veretians are sly bastards at the best of times. A year after we have thoroughly trounced them? I hardly think they'll greet you cordially. Vere is a snake pit."

Appreciative and agreeing grumbles rumbled throughout the room, and Damen had to bite his tongue to silence himself. He didn't need this. He didn't need this scepticism, this questioning of his father's final word. He needed to be in Vere not just now but yesterday. Years ago, even. He'd tried – Gods, but he'd physically tried - and it had come to naught. The Veretians at the border hadn't looked kindly upon an Akielon. They likely still didn't.

But Theomedes being Theomedes, he didn't budge. He didn't waver either in his decision or his gaze upon Damen, and Damen could only love him and respect him all the more for it. Though battle-ready and blunt, more eager to resolve issues with his fists and a blade than with hours of verbal warfare as every Akielon was, Damen would always admire him. Not for the first time, a twinge settled in his gut with the memory of what it had been to lose him.

"No," Theomedes said, speaking over both Kastor's continuation and the murmurs of the councillors. "Damianos has been the most avid supporter of remedying the antagonistic relationship we share with Vere. I believe he will be most suitable."

And that was that. There was finality to Theomedes' words that forbade further objection. Damen bowed himself from the room and started for the barracks immediately. He would ready his men, would prepare himself to leave immediately with only the obligatory courier and negotiation party to wait upon. They would travel by land, racing on horseback despite the benefit and potential cut of travel times by boarding ship. Damen had always been more comfortable with ground beneath his feet.

Starting down to the training area and nearly running to the barracks, Damen nearly tripped over where Nikandros and several of his others men were hunkered upon the broad steps, bathing in the sun. Nikandros immediately sprung to his feet, eyeing Damen almost warily. Those around him followed suit, standing to casual attention in wait.

"I take it that went well?" Nikandros asked with persisting wariness.

Damen couldn't help himself. A fiercely triumphant smile spread across his lips that he noted detachedly similarly settled on the faces of several of his men. He nodded curtly. "We leave for Vere as soon as possible."

Nikandros regarded him unblinkingly for a long moment, standing in his path as though deliberately obstructing him. Even had he not been so positioned, Damen knew he would have waited for him to speak. Nikandros was smarter than many gave him credit for; when he spoke it was always with thought behind his words. "What is it, Damen?" he finally asked, words slow and almost hesitant. "Why are you so eager?"

What could Damen say? That he knew of a better future when Akielos and Vere weren't at each other's throats? That he understood that relative peace could be obtained without preceding violence? That he was chaffing at the bit to confront the Regent, if only with words, in some vague hope to deflect him from his inevitable plans?

And somehow, more achingly, that he missed Laurent so dearly it was a physical and constant pain within him? That he thought about him every moment, both as the man he knew, the King he admired, and the current fourteen-year-old boy within a foreign palace and crushed between his uncle's grasp? No, Damen couldn't say that. He could barely even think it, could hardly consider Laurent within the Regent's power. He'd lost days to redness when that happened, too.

Instead, Damen only shake his head at his friend. "I simply believe that reaching an accord with Vere would be most beneficial. To all of us."

Damen could see in Nikandros' face that he knew that wasn't the entirety. That he knew there was something Damen was deliberately keeping from him, but that he similarly knew that no amount of pushing or prodding would draw it from him. So instead, he only bowed his head and fell into step alongside Damen to continue down the stairs towards the barracks.

They were away before sunrise the next morning.

* * *

Damen was still seething with rage nearly an hour after his confrontation with the Regent. Gods, but he _loathed_ the man. Not only did he hate him for his wily tongue, the almost-condescending manner with which he spoke, as though considering Damen his inferior, but he almost gagged for the sickly sweetness of it all. The Regent seemed good. Kind. Fair, even.

It stung even more because Damen knew what a lie it was.

It took all of his strength to simply keep from blurting out an accusation, from demanding the Regent confess his guilt and from drawing the sword that no longer hung at his side, because _of course_ the Veretians wouldn't allow an armed Akielon within their halls. They may be tentatively approaching an unsteady accord, but there were limits. Damen left that meeting, that first meeting, thoroughly unhinged, frustrated, and sickened. It was only that he had a goal of paramount importance that he even left his distinctly over-decorated rooms at all.

Striding through the hallways of the palace at Chastillon, Damen felt himself gradually ease. Not completely, for he didn't think he ever would be wholly comfortable when in any kind of proximity to the Regent, but he was less distressed. These halls - they were so achingly familiar, and though he loved Akielos to his bones, he'd grown to love Vere in its own way. He'd missed it, in a strange fashion. Damen had walked those very hallways as first a slave and then as a King accompanying the King of Vere himself. He knew them, knew each turn and corridor, even the little channels reserved specifically for servants that wove unnoticed throughout like a root system.

Damen knew the way to Laurent's quarters. Or more correctly, to the quarters he'd lived in as a child. Laurent had showed him once, however briefly. It hadn't been an enjoyable experience for either of them. There were memories within of a childhood that Laurent wished to forget, both for the stinging poignancy of those pertaining to his brother and those that had followed after. Damen found himself clenching his jaw once more. _Don't think about that,_ he coached himself. If he did, he would likely turn on his heel and start back for the Regent to wring his neck with his bare hands in the absence of his sword.

Servants passed him with slight inclinations of their heads and vaguely questioning glances. Damen wasn't supposed to be wandering around, he knew, but none would breathe a word of reprimand to him directly. No one would dare. Even so, he suspected he would have little enough time before someone had the audacity to would approach him. It was only a matter of _much_ time.

Turning a corner, Damen descended the last flight of shallow steps to the wing that he knew to be the one he sought. A quiet wing, it was reserved for only the prince himself, and would be guarded for just that purpose. The prince and the Regent, that were. Damen clenched his jaw even more tightly at the passing thought.

And guarded it was. As Damen peered around the last corner, he caught sight of the two guards standing imposingly on either side of the door. They would be upon Damen and driving him from the area in an instant should they see him, which meant he would find another way. If he could only -

One of the guards sniffed just slightly and tipped his head, and Damen couldn't help but start slightly. Orlant. It was Orlant, guarding the prince's chambers. Alongside him stood a guard that Damen admittedly didn't recognise, but... how strange. Damen had seen him dead, had accepted the death of one of Laurent's most loyal men who'd died under a misplaced assumption of treachery. It was remarkably good, heartening even, to see him. And yet unutterably sad, too.

Damen withdrew hesitantly, turning back along the corridor to one of the few doors he'd passed on his way. Laurent had shown him this, too; that access to his rooms was achievable not solely through the front entrance. It merely took a knowing slip into a sidelong room and access through a panel to clamber through. Damen didn't want to consider what people would think should they find him in the process of such clambering. It was bad enough that he had to resort to such underhanded means for access.

But Damen hadn't seen him. Laurent had been absent from the meeting. He wasn't even the Regent's attendant when Damen and his men had arrived for their exchange. Damen would be damned if he'd wait upon the Regent's goodwill to meet him. He ached for it, ached to just see him. To know he was alright, even if he knew he wouldn't be, that he _couldn't_ be.

Slipping through the short, dark passage, Damen pushed against the closed door at the other end and eased it open. Not a creak sounded, barely the whisper of the door opening inwards, and a moment later, a suite bathed in light and walls of gold and white met him.

It wasn't a child's room, but then, Damen hadn't truly expected it to be. The suite was as grand as that of a grown prince, an entire wall lined with books, a reclining couch and chaise lounge in cream upholstery, rich, woven carpets adorned the floors left barely free to reveal the tiles beneath. A wide window with gossamer curtains peered out onto a balcony, elevated above a private garden beyond, and yet...

No prince.

Padding silently through the room, Damen crossed to the sole archway leading into subsequent rooms. He spared a glance for the closed doors of what could only be a bathing room, but only for a moment before he slipped into the adjacent room.

A bedroom. Gold and white. Wide window, more gossamer drapes. A bed wreathed in curtains and with more pillows than blankets took up the majority of the space, large enough for a small party of men. And empty. Damen didn't see anyone, and quite against his logical thought he began to grow concerned. If Laurent wasn't here then where...?

Damen padded into the bedroom towards the only remaining archway, the glowing white walls of a dressing just visible – only to pause in step a moment later. He didn't move an inch further forward, didn't even turn, but slowly, slowly, raised his arms on either side of his head. The pressure that suddenly had appeared at the small of his back deepened just slightly.

"I'm unarmed," he said.

The barest prick of a knife dug into his skin, pressing just slightly against the thinnest point of his shirt, at the gap between his leathers. Damen recognised it for the weapon it was even without glancing over his shoulder for confirmation. It didn't waver, not even slightly, and for a long moment there was no reply. Then, "Who are you?"

Still Damen didn't turn. He didn't want to frighten the boy, for boy he very definitely was. His voice was still soft and unbroken, and though it held steel there was a note of concern, almost worry, within. More than that, Damen was aware that he was short. The source of that voice was distinctly lower than his shoulder.

"I am the Prince of Akielos," Damen said, speaking in calm, composed Veretian, It didn't lessen the pressure of the knife even slightly. "I came with the envoy and wish to -"

"You're not Kastor."

Damen cut himself off at the interruption that wasn't a question. He fought the urge to glance over his shoulder once more. "No. I'm not."

"Then you're Damianos."

"I am," Damen said with a nod. "You know I'm not Kastor?"

"Of course I do. You think I wouldn't know the face of the man who killed my brother?"

Ah. Damen closed his eyes briefly. He should have guessed. Laurent had told him, once, the moment he'd met him that he knew Damen was more than a common slave. That he knew he was Damianos immediately. It would make sense that, even if it weren't Damen who had killed Auguste, Laurent who recognise the face of the one who had. "You were there on the battlefield?" Damen asked by way of continuing the conversation, even if he already knew.

"Of course I was. And I saw your bastard of a brother cut him down."

There was real steel in his words, a shadow speaking of the strength Damen knew was to come. His voice was youthful, his words not quite as refined as those of his older self, but it was no great leap to hear the resemblance. It was hardly a step, even. Damen wasn't sure if the thought warmed him or made his ache of regret even deeper. Even at _fourteen_ he'd been…

"May I turn to face you?" Damen asked, desperate in that moment just to see.

"Why?"

"Well, conversations are usually better conducted when those partaking can see one another, you know."

"I know. The majority of expression is gleaned from the face. I'm not an idiot." The way he spoke was condescending and just a little indignant, as though he really did think Damen considered him a fool.

Damen couldn't help but smile slightly. "I didn't think you were. May I turn?"

Silence stretched again for a moment before he was answered. "Why are you here?"

Fighting the urge to glance over his shoulder for the umpteenth time, aware of the slight increase of the pressure at the small of his back, Damen schooled himself in an effort to withhold his true feeling. _Because I missed you. Because I've wanted to see you so badly for what seems like forever_. "We're both princes of neighbouring countries looking to forge an alliance. I feel it would be appropriate for us to at least meet."

"An alliance?"

"Yes.

"So he's really going to..." The words trailed off but not into contemplation. There was a touch of incredulity, even horror, and his murmured statement seemed directed more to himself than to Damen. But even so, the knife lowered.

Damen waited for a beat, another, and another, before slowly turning and dropping his arms to his sides. Slowly, so slowly, as to avoid startling him. He didn't think Laurent had ever been the type to react hysterically, even when he was a child, never to lash out without thought, but in uncertain situations it was better to be wary.

When he saw him, Damen was rendered breathless.

Nicaise had been a beautiful boy. Stunning, even, the kind to still a passer-by in the street and leave them rendered mute and wide-eyed. But even Nicaise would pale in comparison to Laurent. He was short, slender in the way of many a prepubescent boy, though lacking even in the muscle tone of the children that would spend their days practicing to become future swordsmen in Akeilos. His thin shoulders were tense yet not hunched, and there was his future hardness of character apparent within him, the straightness of posture that always gave him an impression of aloofness. Skin so pale as to be almost translucent, golden hair a glowing crown that nearly brushed his shoulders and large eyes so blue they seemed iridescent. It was all so familiar, so achingly familiar, yet different in the face of a child, smooth cheeks just slightly smaller, slightly more rounded.

He wasn't looking at Damen, which was fortunate, for he perhaps would have panicked had he seem the open adoration that Damen was sure he wore like a fool himself. Instead, Laurent stared just to the side, a little thoughtful perhaps, though the frown that touched his features suggested it wasn't a favourable thought. _He's really going to..._ he'd said. Was he referring to the Regent? Damen knew Laurent had always been horrified at the thought of an alliance between their people. Or at least he had been. That such disgust had been from such a young age…

Damen didn't offer a hand in greeting. He wouldn't cross the short distance Laurent had put between them. He wouldn't impress his presence upon him more than he had to, wouldn't encourage the wariness that was already present in droves. Instead, Damen tipped his head, bowing just slightly in the way of respect between princes of equal standing. He saw Laurent flicker his attention towards him, blinking long golden lashes, and that guardedness welled visibly within his eyes. They weren't quite as cold, not quite as flat as the man Damen knew so well could manage, but it wasn't far off. It was disconcerting to behold in one so young.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty," Damen said with as much genuine warmth as he could.

Laurent stared at him, unblinking, and with the seemingly deliberate absence of his frown, his expression was a smooth and untouchable as it had even been. _So young..._ "Touch me and I'll gut you like a pig," he said coolly.

Damen was torn between smiling at the bluntness and wincing for what such a precaution meant. Not only that, but the way Laurent flicked the knife in his hand - nothing but a short knife, slim, but enough to do damage - he evidently how to use it. Not a swordsman, maybe, or not yet, but he was clearly far from defenceless.

Damen tipped his head once more. "I wouldn't dream of it."

Laurent's eyebrow twitched just slightly. "Wouldn't you?"

A flush of bile threatened to rise into Damen's mouth. He bit back on the grimace, not for the taste but for the notion, that arose with Laurent's words, and shook his head sharply. "No. Not for an instant."

Laurent regarded him silently again for a long moment, his expression carefully blank. It hurt to behold, and not only because Damen knew of the boy Laurent had been not a year before; the light-hearted, bookish, naive child who'd doted on his elder brother. More than that, it hurt to be the subject of Laurent's unforgiving gaze, the icy blue allowing not a hint of warmth or even curiosity to seep through. Laurent hadn't looked at Damen like that for a long time – for years, even – though he still turned such merciless attention upon others.

No child's gaze should look like that. Laurent should never look at _Damen_ like that. Not anymore. It was so _wrong_.

Laurent took a slight step backwards that somehow managed to look less like a retreat and more a practical shift in stance. "Of course you wouldn't," he said finally, and there wasn't the barest hint of belief in his words. It stung like a slap to the face.

With a determined straightening of his shoulders, Damen forcibly changed the subject. "I didn't see you at the reception."

"No, you didn't," Laurent said shortly.

"Where were you? I would have thought that, even young as you are, a prince would want to be -"

"Just because you didn't see me didn't mean I wasn't there," Laurent interrupted just as curtly. "And I'm not that young."

Damen nodded his head in concession. Laurent was looking for a fight with his barbed words. It was in a less refined manner than he'd conducted such pursuits as a grown man, but that preceding shadow was definitely there once more. The thought caused Damen to struggle with a smile, albeit a pained one. _He shouldn't be like that. He shouldn't have to be_. "You witnessed it all, I take it?"

"Yes."

"And what were your thoughts?"

Laurent stared up at him unblinkingly for a moment, and a flicker of uncertainty, even confusion, arose in his eyes. Damen wondered if anyone, the Regent or otherwise, had ever asked his opinion on political matters before. Had his brother?

Yet when he replied it was with formal enunciation, as though he had practiced such a speech. "I think that you come in a very amiable manner, and that should your words and intentions prove fruitful then my uncle would be eager to forge an alliance with you. Should he deem it… advantageous."

Damen caught the unspoken words on the tail of Laurent's emotionless statement. "You don't deem it advantageous yourself?"

It was only because Damen was watching him so closely that he saw Laurent's eyes narrow infinitesimally. "You're Akielon."

Damen nodded his head in more understanding than he suspected Laurent thought him capable of. "I am. We are."

"You were attempting to destroy my people barely a year ago."

 _My people_. Even at his age, with responsibility thrust upon him in nothing but pretence, Laurent had accepted his role. Damen bit back on the flicker of pride that welled within him. He doubted Laurent would appreciate it, and certainly not coming from him. "We were. But things have changed."

"Things," Laurent echoed flatly. "What things would those be? My brother and my father are still dead."

 _Not by my hand_ , Damen fought not to say. _And your father not even by an Akielon arrow._ He would tell Laurent, he swore he would, but not now. Not yet. Before he could speak, however, Laurent continued. "Every Veretian remembers only too well the cost the war had upon them. I'm not the only one who isn't ready to forget."

"I wouldn't expect you to," Damen said. "And I can't change the past, regardless of how I may wish to. We can only look to the future."

"You would want to change the past." Laurent's words were less of a question and more of a dubious statement. "How very agreeable of you, Damianos. So good of you to overlook the negligible slights you've heaped upon Vere in the hopes of moving forwards."

There was such educated sharpness in Laurent's words that for a moment Damen saw him not as a child but as the young man he'd first met. His tone was bereft of sarcasm, was little more than a monotone, yet that dexterity was clearly there. "I don't expect anyone to forget," Damen reiterated. "But that doesn't mean I can't attempt to pay for the damage that has been done, even if such payment can never be entirely fulfilled."

Laurent regarded him silently before replying in slow tones. "You speak like you'll do it personally."

"Maybe I will."

"That doesn't exactly instil confidence in the changing attitude of Akielos. One man can do very little."

"Every movement starts with but one man," Damen said, recalling as he did so often how Laurent himself had taught him that with his own actions. "Let me be the one to start it. It simply helps that I'm a prince with my foot in the door and my voice in the ear of a very powerful King."

Laurent's eyebrow rose just slightly and he flicked the knife in his hand with a snap of his fingers. Not in threat, but as thought thoughtful. "You're a very strange person, Damianos. Are all Akielon's like you?"

It wasn't a compliment, for Damen could hear if not see the curl of Laurent's lip. He took it as one anyway, however, and forced a smile onto his face. "I don't know. Maybe. Perhaps you should come and see sometime."

Disgust momentarily twisted Laurent's face, an expression that Damen didn't think he'd ever seen before and tightened his youthful features into sharp planes. "Go to Akielos?" he hissed, and there was very real hatred in his tone.

To be expected. Damen knew how much Laurent had once hated his country.

Before he even considered what he was going to say, Damen was speaking. Speaking, even as he wished he could withdraw the words. "You could get away from your uncle, if only briefly."

The disgust died. In an instant, it vanished to be replaced by utter blankness. Not horror or loathing as Damen might have expected for at mention of his uncle, but something else entirely. "What did you say?"

Any amiability Laurent might have tentatively afforded Damen had disappeared. Damen kicked himself between mental curses. Just the thought of the Regent, of what he'd afflicted upon Laurent, made him ill and darkened the edges of his vision, but worse was to know, to think, that at the time Laurent hadn't even hated it. He hadn't been disgusted, had thought his uncle cared for him and… He was no cold and hateful young man looking back upon a childhood that had scarred him. This was real for him. This was now. This was ignorance of what was to come.

"I'm sorry," Damen said. "I simply meant to suggest that I'm sure your - that I'm sure your uncle is overprotective of you and you would benefit from even a brief respite." The lies tasted sour on Damen's tongue.

Laurent stared at him unreadably, the thinning of his lips his only expression. He didn't get the chance to speak, however, for a voice in the adjacent room broke through the silence. "Laurent? Laurent, where have you taken yourself?"

In an instant that unreadable sharpness had disappeared into a strangely cool expression of complacency. It was so instantaneous that it had to have been practiced. Laurent lifted his chin, shoulders loosening just a little. He didn't reply as the Regent's footsteps drew closer, however. He didn't move but to lock his attention upon Damen only more sharply, almost with satisfaction, as though watching a law-breaker on the verge of punishment. Through the serenity of his expression, Damen could feel the glare, the hatred even, radiating from him.

The Regent appeared in the doorway promptly, and his gaze already dropped towards his nephew before quickly shifting towards Damen. A touch of surprise rose in his expression so briefly that Damen considered he might have imagined it before it folded into one of mild curiosity. "Prince Damianos? Whatever could you be doing in my nephews quarters?"

He spoke in Akielon. Damen registered that, if little else, for in the same moment his hand rose to rest upon the side of Laurent's head. It could have been an affectionate touch, a familial gesture between uncle and nephew, except that Damen saw the way Laurent leaned into it slightly in a way that suggested it was anything but.

Damen's vision blurred. He wanted to kill the man. He wanted to kill him so sorely the urge was nearly compulsive. It was perhaps a good thing that Laurent's slender little knife had vanished as though it had never been. Damen thought he might have leapt across the distance between them and used it to slit the Regent's throat.

He didn't, though. He didn't allow himself to shift in step, nor even to clench his fists, for not only would that be indication of his fury but it would be one step closer to throwing a punch. Instead, Damen strove to adopt the same cool, calm facade that Laurent wore, had worn so often, and shifted his attention towards the Regent. It was nearly impossible to offer a cordial smile, but Damen struggled regardless. "I apologise. I simply wished to introduce myself to Prince Laurent, as I considered it would be appropriate to become acquainted with the future ruler of Akielos' allying country."

The Regent blinked slowly, but otherwise gave no indication of belief or otherwise in Damen's words. "Of course. I, too, must apologise. I should have explained my nephew's absence at the earlier proceedings. He was feeling unwell this morning and I believed it better to await the feast this evening."

The lie rolled so easily off his tongue, ringing jarringly in Damen's ears for the simple fact that it sounded so genuine. Damen had to fight the urge to growl in disgust. He loathed dishonesty at the best of times. "It is no trouble. As you can see, we have remedied the situation."

"Naturally," the Regent said with a nod. Then he dropped his attention down towards Laurent, his fingers stroking the side of his head in a pat that was almost a reprimand in its falsely familial nature. "Laurent, whyever didn't you send me word of Prince Damianos' arrival in your rooms. Did you perhaps tell the guards not to inform me?"

Laurent's face was so blankly schooled he looked like a carved statue. When he replied it was in tentative Akielon, with the voice of a barely learned foreigner. "I apologise, Uncle. It was only a short meeting."

"I'm sure," the Regent nodded. He lifted his attention back towards Damen, his hand not ceasing its gentle pats. It turned Damen's stomach, and this time he couldn't help but curl his hands into fists. He hid them behind his back. "Perhaps we could converse in a more agreeable location, Prince Damianos? Should you wish to discuss any particular subjects of interest, I'm sure Laurent would be more than obliging at the feast this evening."

Damen didn't want to agree. He didn't want to cave to the Regent's suggestion to leave for the few hours that remained between then and the evening meal. But he hardly had a choice, and though Laurent was very clearly almost revolving around his uncle's presence, the invisible glare he turned upon Damen remained. Damen doubted he would get much from Laurent at the feast even if they sat alongside one another, let alone in that moment.

So Damen dipped his head in a nod and forced another smile onto his lips. "Of course. Whatever you would deem appropriate."

He left the rooms seething, struggling to suppress the urge to glance at Laurent over his shoulder once more as he made his way back to his designated rooms. The hours leading up to the feast were torture, and he found little relief in pacing his room. With Nikandros in tow, Damen walked the familiar steps to the training yard, ignoring the question as to how he knew the route without a guide, and fell into a fast-paced and aggressive set of drills that left he and Nikandros sweating profusely and his friend cursing whatever frustrations drove him.

The feast was extravagant, but then, much of everything that Veretians did was just that. Damen was reminded on the first he'd ever been to one, the golden collar and cuffs still tight around neck and wrists. Multiple courses amidst boundless conversation – for the Veretians seemed to excel at appearing to be bothered none that those who were until recently their fiercest enemies dined at their table – was followed by performances, of dance and song, theatre and even a fire-breather, though one with a different face to that Dame recalled.

The entire time, he performed his duties, spoke with the lords and ladies, and knew he surprised them for how he danced their steps. Veretian court was so vastly different to that in Akielos that it was nigh incomparable. Damen knew he was expected to be ran rings around, and he put every once of his knowledge of how to avoid just that eventuality into practice.

Laurent would have been proud of him.

Just that thought had him looking on countless occasions to his side. Damen had been afforded a seat of honour alongside the Regent and his nephew, and he found it nearly impossible to draw his gaze from the straight-backed, silent figure of Laurent at his side.

Seated as he was, his diminutive size was only made more apparent. Damen was sure that Akielos had never raised a boy his age so short. And yet, even so, he carried himself with an aloofness that was nothing if not the younger sibling of that Damen knew he would wear when he was grown. He sat straight and elegant in his muteness, immaculate in the fitted garments that were reminiscent if not quite identical to those of the lords and ladies that surrounded him, and he replied to the words spoken to him with barely more than a nod of a shake of his head.

Damen didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. Though he wished he hadn't spoken as he had, the desire to take Laurent back to Akielos and out of his uncle's filthy hands was a physical ache within him. Damen hated it, hated the thought of leaving him to the sharks, even if he was unsure of how to draw him out of it.

He couldn't. He _couldn't_ leave Laurent to the Regent.

Almost as badly as that, Damen hated the fact that, even if not overtly expressed, Laurent showed such acceptance of his uncle. There was certainly no conceivable way that a boy so young, in such a situation as he was embedded, should be expected to acknowledge his as so warped, despite living in Vere and being exposed to such things since he was a child. Except that Damen had seen the intelligence in Laurent many a times, the cunning and dexterity of his mind. He'd seen him as a young man spit in the face of torment and weave intricate riddles around the words of his supposed betters, neatly side-stepping and even taunting in return. He hadn't quailed before the Regent; not even when he'd written a death sentence in sending Laurent to the border.

It hurt to see Laurent so oblivious, but that would change. Damen knew it would change, and he wasn't sure if he was comforted or horrified by the knowledge.

He tried to speak with Laurent, but each attempt was afforded nothing but a nod or a shake of the head. Even open-ended questions provoked little more than a shrug, at which point the Regent would most likely reply in his stead. Damen wanted to growl and snap at the man to silence himself. It was one of the most difficult things he had faced to suppress that urge.

There was only one point at which Laurent spoke. Not to the table or even to the Regent, but with a slight lean towards Damen that immediately drew his undivided attention. Staring up at him from wide blue eyes, Laurent seemed to contemplate him for a moment before he spoke. "You're a very good swordsman."

The way he said it made it seem as though he was reluctant to voice such a compliment. Hardly a compliment at all, really, it sounded more disdainful, though such disdain wasn't apparent upon Laurent's face. Damen didn't feel even a flicker of discontent for it; it was impossible to do so, as much because it was Laurent who spoke as because he was nothing but a boy.

"Thank you," he said, accepting it as the compliment that it wasn't. "I've practiced hard."

"Are you better than your brother?"

Damen stared down at Laurent, meeting his unwavering gaze. It didn't take a leap of genius to discern why Laurent asked, and the sharpness of his gaze, the slight flintiness, was indication enough. Damen knew that the main reason Laurent had taken up the sword was to better Damen. He could only think that such a thought was even then running through Laurent's mind, urging him to do just the same with Kastor as his alternative target.

If Damen spoke honestly, he would admit that he didn't think so. That he didn't think, in his current state and with the additional years of experience that put him past Kastor's own, that his brother could beat him. It was neither arrogance nor pride that considered as much, but instead the unbiased opinion of an objective observer.

But Damen didn't say that. He didn't think Laurent would believe him if he did. So instead he simply shook his head. "No. My brother is very skilled."

Laurent stared at Damen for another long moment, his expression shuttered and unreadable. Then he nodded slowly. Just a nod, but it was enough. Damen didn't know what exactly had pushed him the Laurent that _he_ knew to that very same decision, but he recognised the determination in what he saw.

Laurent didn't speak again and Damen didn't urge him to. He wouldn't, either; not when the Regent turned a sharp gaze towards him as though assessing him as a potential threat. The rest of the feast and entertainment passed in little enough excitement, bellies sloshing with drink in preparation for the meetings of the following days.

They passed easily enough. Cordially, as to be expected. Cordially – but not well, in Damen's opinion. He would never look upon those meets with anything but regret and anger, because when he and his men left barely a week later it was without the company of the Veretian prince.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you for reading! I hope you're enjoying the story so far. Please leave me a comment to let me know your thoughts. I really, really appreciate it, and definitely take and suggestions - or otherwise - on board! I can't thank the lovely people who've already left such kind words enough. You've made my day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry I'm so late in updating, everyone. This chapter is... a bit frustrating. A bit wordy, I'm afraid, and I'm sorry for that. I hope you like it anyway! Please leave a comment if you get the chance!

_"My King, please. If you would only wait but a moment."_

_Damen didn't wait. There were no pressing concerns. He longed to leave for Delpha, but he wouldn't have made the trip unless he was sure he could afford the few days ride there and back again. His city could survive without him for that long. Why, it had done just that on multiple occasions over the past years, and at times for even longer._

_Shaking his head, Damen spared a glance for the cluster of frowning advisors, for his guards who pursed their lips and clucked their tongues in their confusion. They didn't understand. None of them would understand. Damen wasn't even sure he understood himself._

_"I apologise," he said with a slight tip of his head. "I won't be gone long. But there's something I must know."_

_Leonidas, a recently appointed councillor who hadn't dealt with Damen's stubbornness for quite as long as the rest of them, stepped forwards. "Surely the Oracle of Delpha's gifts of wisdom should be reserved for more, ah…" He paused, wafting his hand in the air for a moment as though grasping for a thought, "necessary?"_

_Damen arched an eyebrow, and though Leonidas – and all the councillors, for that matter – were men-at-arms themselves, were veterans of war as every leader should be, they each cringed slightly. "Necessary?"_

_Leonidas blinked. "I apologise, I misspoke –"_

_"The King of Vere and our country itself are not deemed necessary in your eyes?"_

_"I didn't mean –"_

_"No, I don't believe you did," Damen interrupted him again. "For even you wouldn't be so foolish as to consider it. Vere and Akielos are tied, Leonidas. If you have any consideration for myself as your king, then equal consideration is to be given to King Laurent."_

_Leonidas appeared thoroughly chastised, just as each of the rest of the councillors did. Not that they were – or at least not to the degree that Damen was. That he felt. He would never_ not _feel guilty for a past he couldn't change._

_But even so, Damen had to know. He had to know the alternative so he could face Laurent without the veil of ignorance. Or, if not without ignorance, then at least with the purest understanding of his errors that he could attain._

_Years ago, Damen had been prepared to give up his country for Laurent, and his life on top of that. He knew that, even now, that much had and never would change._

* * *

Laurent had turned nineteen by the time the treaty was finalised.

Damen had grown to measure time passing by Laurent's age rather than his own, even above such measurements of the passing years. He was at odds each time he looked in the mirror and beheld himself as younger than he knew he was, and the passing of days and weeks and hours and seconds was so haphazard as to be unreliable.

Damen didn't know what to make of that. He didn't know what to make of any of it. He simply fought with his every breath to change the wrongs that had been wrought not by his hand this time but by his brother's. His brother – and the ever-present will of the Regent.

The finalisation was held in Marlas. The irony was not lost on a single person, and Damen couldn't suppress the slight wince he experienced when Theomedes informed him as to the location of their meeting. At the height of spring, a symbolic time of renewal and rebirth, Damen set out alongside his father, his brother, and half the population of Ios in tow for the number of slaves and attendants the courtiers deemed necessary to accompany them. They left the city behind them as they ploughed through the blossoming greenery to the north.

Nikandros rode alongside Damen. He had been appointed kyroi of Marlas bare years ago, and had only descended to Ios to accompany the king in his trip towards the fort he now held. Damen had listened as, with more familiarity and casualness than would perhaps be expected of even a close friend to a prince, Nikandros had explained how utterly and nearly impossible it had been to make the preparations for the ceremony.

 _"You won't believe how much time and energy goes into ensuring that the living quarters and resources are adequate enough for everyone coming,"_ he'd written months before when he'd been already thoroughly embedded in just those preparations. _"Thinking about how much needs to be prepared even just for the feast on the night of the signing…"_

Damen did know. Of course he knew, and not only because just that ceremony had been conducted under his own kingship in the past. Or future; he wasn't quite sure anymore. He was a prince, and though it wasn't his primary duty to organise such events, he wouldn't shirk his responsibilities and education by leaving such organising entirely in the hands of others. Nikandros knew that. It was likely the primary reason he'd been so jokingly complaining of the fact.

Riding north alongside his friend was the first time Damen had seen him in months. He'd bowed his head in allowance of taking the most recent journey to Chastillon by boat, and the time before that had been a visit of the Veretians to Ios instead. Laurent hadn't come for that one. He hadn't come for a single trip to Akielos, despite the fact that his absence could be considered a slight. That, if nothing else, told Damen that he was far from putting the past behind him. Very far.

Lost in thought, it took hours into their ride for Nikandros to draw him into conversation. Or at least it was likely hours; Damen found he could blink in one moment and find himself in a different location entirely. That happened a lot, and though Damen didn't understand why, he considered it likely had something to do with the strange phenomena in which he found himself embedded. At least he hoped that was what it was, with the past twisted and impressed upon him in an entirely unexpected fashion. Damen couldn't let himself think that what was happening was real, was permanent, even if it did feel very much like it. The life he'd already lived _couldn't_ have just vanished.

Could it?

With a hint of concern in his tone, Nikandros interrupted his thoughts. "Are you alright, Damen?" he asked, deliberately keeping his tone low as though to inhibit potential eavesdroppers.

Damen blinked up from where he'd been staring detachedly ahead of him, eyes grazing over the undulating hills and blossoming life that surrounded them. Spring truly was upon them, had hit fast and warm. Damen had always loved the season.

He turned his attention towards Nikandros, lifting his eyebrows questioningly. "Yes?" he said, more of a question than a reply. "Why?"

Nikandros stared at him for a long moment before he slowly shook his head. "Nothing," he replied. "It's just… you were doing that thing again."

Nikandros was smart. Smart and observant, as he'd always been. He was one of the few who'd noticed that something might not be quite right with Damen – or at least one of the very few who persisted with such speculations. In the past years since Damen's awakening in the battle of Marlas, the years that had passed so disjointedly and haphazardly, Nikandros was the only one who still asked him.

"Doing what thing?" Damen asked obtusely.

Nikandros' frank expression told him he wasn't fooled for a moment. "You know what I'm talking about. I swear, you haven't even seen a second of the countryside since we left Ios, even if you have been staring."

Damen shrugged. "I'm just thinking."

"You do a lot of that."

"Well, it is good for the mind, you know."

Nikandros snorted, drawing Kastor's attention from where he rode just before them. Only momentarily, however, before Kastor turned away once more. Damen's brother wasn't one who'd pursued Damen's 'strangeness' as ardently as Nikandros had. "You sound like a Veretian when you say that, you know. Next thing you know you'll be weaving a web of half-truths around me that tangles me off my feet."

Damen couldn't help but smile for his words, if a little ruefully. Nikandros had said just that on multiple occasions before, and it would always elicit a flicker of amusement within him. It was true, after all. Damen knew he'd hardly been spared from the influence of Veretian exposure in the past, if more in the past he _knew_ than this alternate version of what he was still so unfamiliar. Just as Laurent and his attitude had shifted – if barely noticeably to the naked eye – so too had Damen's. He knew and he liked that fact. It made him feel just a little closer to his real home.

The thought wiped Damen's smile from his face. Such would always happen when he thought of Laurent. He couldn't stop it. All of it, from his failure on the fields of Marlas to his inability to do _anything_ in the year afterwards or any of those since. He'd been all but useless to Laurent. For Vere, he'd made headway, and many would likely thank him for it, but for Laurent?

There was still the Regent. There was still his oppression, the fierce hand he continued to struggle even now to wrap around Laurent's throat. That understanding, no matter how cordial and enabling the Regent seemed in their meetings, made it impossible for Damen to view him with anything less than murderous loathing.

Damen missed Laurent. He missed him dearly, and that fact grew only more profound the more time passed from the reality that he knew, understood and loved. Was this one any better? Akielos and Vere were reaching an accord years younger than they would have otherwise, and the antagonism was dampened because of it, but was it better?

Damen wished he knew. No, he wished he had the courage to acknowledge that it was, wished he _believed_ it was. Akielos benefitted, and even Vere, despite the absence of the hatred that had grown into friendship and then something more between Damen and Laurent. He knew he should think of it as better but…

No. It didn't feel right.

"You're doing it again."

Turning from where his gaze had drawn forwards once more, Damen attempted another smile. "Sorry. Just thinking."

"About?"

"Nothing of great importance."

"Now that I definitely don't believe." Nikandros shook his head with a slight smile of his own. "The Damen I know doesn't think about 'nothing of importance'." He raised an eyebrow and Damen forced a chuckle from his lips. _The Damen I know…_ The Damen Nikandros knew _now_ , maybe. Damen understood himself well enough to know that at least the first time around he hadn't been quite so deep-thinking.

"I'm just thinking about the ceremony," he said, sparing a glance over his shoulder for the long line of attendants and soldiers clattering in their wake. The trail stretched into the distance, continuing over the crest of a hill. "About what it will mean for everyone. For Akielos and Vere."

"See? Hardly nothing of importance."

Damen's laughter was more genuine this time. "Just walking the same weary tracks, more correctly. It's not like thinking of them will do me any good."

"Worrying, then?" Nikandros prodded. He tipped his dark head expectantly, meeting Damen's gaze as he turned towards him.

Damen shook his head. "Not exactly. Just wondering how the Veretian's will take it, I suppose."

"Or one Veretian in particular, maybe?"

Damen nodded. The words didn't need an explanation; not from Nikandros. Nikandros understood at least that much, and he'd never cautioned Damen for it. Not once. "Maybe one in particular," Damen agreed.

Nikandros was silent for a moment before he replied hesitantly. "I don't know if he'll ever turn a favourable eye upon Akielos. Maybe it's a good thing that, at least for now, the Regent holds the power in Vere? I know you don't like him but…"

Damen deliberately tuned out Nikandros' words after that. He didn't want to hear them. He didn't want to hear the tentative justifications for the rule of a cruel, vicious, cunning and underhanded bastard that Damen dreamed of destroying every night. Even if Nikandros was right in one regard – that the Prince of Vere might never turn a favourable eye upon Akielos – that didn't mean that the Regent should rule. It never would.

It hurt to even consider, however. That Laurent might never favour Akielos when Damen knew that, once upon a time, he'd grown to do just that. As Damen urged his mount up the next rise, it was to regret more heartily that such hadn't happened in _this_ life. In _this_ turn of events. And that, perhaps, it never would.

Perhaps this was the right way, how things _should_ have been, how Akielos and Vere should have joined their forces. Maybe it was better had they formed an alliance founded on political communication rather then the love between two individuals. But to Damen…

It didn't feel right. He wasn't sure it ever would. Not like this.

* * *

The ceremony didn't feel right either.

More correctly, it didn't feel right to _Damen_. There was fanfare, there was jubilation, there was excitement and wonder that _this is really happening_ , but to Damen it was of little interest. Or, more correctly again, he'd experienced something like it and this ceremony...

It fell short.

Damen could remember the moment he and Laurent had stood side by side and announced to the world their intentions for their two countries. Damen had felt nothing but love and pride, both for his people and for Laurent, and he hadn't been able to decide who he longed more to gaze upon. In the end, it had been a day of rapidly switching his eyes between Laurent's cool, composed and yet quietly satisfied presence and the delighted uproar of his people and his soldiers intermingled with the Veretians that stood in attendance.

There'd been no wary, sidelong glances. There was no open distrust. Damen and Laurent had already struggled for years to manage peace for their historically warring countries. Though the official announcement, the official ceremony and the pompous yet entirely necessary signing of paper treaties, had been long expected and long in coming, it was still met with all the awe and enthusiasm of an entire two countries abruptly liberated.

At this ceremony, however, the ceremony at Marlas, Damen stood alongside his father and his brother. Maybe, just maybe, this was how it should have been. Maybe this was how it would have been better, for their countries to reach such an accord diplomatically and with the gradual consensus of the entire councils of Akielos and Vere combined rather than Damen and Laurent single-handedly deciding for them. Maybe... maybe that would have been better and yet...

To Damen's eyes, it fell flat.

It wasn't because there was a lack of enthusiasm, for it was present. The people at Marlas and then some, both from Ios and Chacillon, flooded the primary courtyard of the Marlas' keep, spilling into the surrounding streets of the city. Flags were waved, shouts and cries of approval voiced, and smiles of satisfaction, though some tentative and a little guarded, were worn by all. It was how it should be.

What was wrong wasn't that the one standing before the assembly was not himself as the King of Akielos but his father. Damen felt a pang of regret as the memory of his own speech rang in his mind, dimmed only slightly by his eternal appreciation seeing his father speaking on his own pedestal. Damen had never wanted the throne if it meant losing Theomedes. Listening to the pride than rung in his father's voice as he spoke of Akielos and Vere putting aside their differences for the mutual good, Damen felt his chest constrict. He hadn't realised how sorely he'd wanted his father to see what he and Laurent had built in the destructive wake of Kastor and the Regent's combined forces.

More than that, when Theomedes returned to his place between Damen and Kastor, the nod of approval he'd offered him and the murmured, "You made this possible, Damianos," made it difficult to breathe for a long moment. Theomedes had wanted peace as Damen did, even if he likely hadn't considered obtaining it in the same way.

It wasn't any of that for which the ceremony felt flat for Damen. It wasn't that the feast was inadequate, the entertainment sparse, or the company poor, for it wasn't. It wasn't that Damen felt awkward, still out of his depth with the world he'd found himself in; though he knew years had passed, each month seemed to flash in little more than a heartbeat. It wasn't even that, in recent months, Damen was certain that he hadn't been imagining Kastor's sidelong glances that weren't quite angry but certainly felt disgruntled.

It wasn't... it wasn't the ceremony itself that was in error and it wasn't the people. It was everything else.

Perhaps this _did_ unfold how it should have, but it didn't feel right. It didn't feel like it was supposed to be, and the entire sequence left Damen feeling unhinged as he plucked at the rich meats and tasted the sharp cheese, sipping smooth wine that swirled like honey down his throat. It was as though he viewed a picture just slightly off-centre and a little crooked - not enough to be noticed by a passing glance, but something that became only more apparent the longer Damen stared.

And the primary reason was that Damen wasn't at Laurent's side.

Damen had watched Laurent grow. Always from a distance, regardless of how he'd tried to make it otherwise. He'd attempted to build an amicable relationship between them, or at least one lacking in volatility and antagonism, but Laurent didn't want that. He didn't _want_ to be friends with Damen, even when Damen overlooked the cruel barbs embedded in 'compliments' or 'innocent questions' that became more intricately woven as Laurent grew and his tongue sharpened.

In that moment, Damen regretted it all. He regretted that they were from opposing countries, that they weren't given the opportunity to spend more that a few hours together in the instances where Damen, as the leader of the Akielon party adamant on pursuing the alliance, visited Vere. Damen had never considered his time as a slave favourable; that he had met Laurent was something other, but slavery? No, he had never wanted that.

Except that now, Damen was very certain he would give up everything to return to how it was. To have the chance to build that tentative and gradually rising bridge of wavering trust between them. It had taken long that first time around – _so_ long – and under such extenuating circumstances that Damen still marvelled at times that he'd had the chance to realise his feelings in the midst of such urgency, such mania, and such unprecedented conditions.

Without that, devoid of those moments racing half-blind through the streets pursued by the Regent's men and breathless from adrenaline and exertion, without the rides through the thick underbrush to scout the enemy lines and conduct secret meetings with Vaskian tribes, without...

Without the moments when Laurent had needed to simply speak because he had no one else to trust and Damen was as good as he'd had. Without any of that, there was nothing between them. Laurent didn't want anything, and Damen knew because he'd tried. He'd tried damn hard.

Damen had watched him from afar, very aware that he was longing for someone who barely spared him a glance if not in animosity. It helped none that Damen knew Laurent's hatred was only twice as fierce for Kastor. Damen watched as Laurent grew, as his mind sharpened and his face shaped into one of cold familiarity.

As Damen observed him across the hall in the midst of the ceremonious banquet, it was like seeing a portrait of Laurent from when he'd first seen him so long ago. All of it, from his posture to the sharp tilt of his chin, the cool blankness of his expression to the unwavering hardness of his gaze. Even the tightly laced garments, though more extravagant in deference to the formality of the setting, only added to the thickening tightness that had settled itself in Damen's throat.

At nineteen years old, Laurent was so similar to Damen's first memory of him that it hurt to behold. It hurt even more to know that he couldn't touch him – that he could barely speak to him.

Damen knew that several of those around him knew of what seemed to be his obsession. Nikandros had spoken to him of his observations just the once, but the knowing glance he often turned upon Damen suggested he hadn't forgotten. All of Damen's men, his 'entourage', suspected there was something more between he and Laurent than was visible, even if they didn't have evidence for what it was. They could hardly miss it, Damen was sure, and if they saw then Laurent was surely aware. Not that he said anything, but Damen knew with utter certainty that he'd noticed.

Damen didn't care. He didn't care what anyone else thought, what anyone said or the assumptions they made. The worst they could make, that Damen gazed upon Laurent with nothing but impassioned lust, was crude but wasn't entirely untrue. Damen did want Laurent. He wanted him sorely, even if not just physically. He wanted everything he'd had and was now no longer his.

"You have eyes for the Prince of Vere, little brother."

At Kastor's words, Damen shifted his gaze from where it had indeed been resting upon Laurent. Kastor was staring at him with a touch of amusement, the quirk of a smile upon his lips as he swirled his goblet of wine in one hand. He'd spoken for Damen's ears alone, almost as though he wanted to preserve the privacy of his observations.

Damen didn't care. He didn't care if the whole world knew. What did he care if most believed his desire to join their countries was to grant him favour and proximity to the Veretian prince? Such an assumption wasn't exactly untrue.

Tipping his head slightly, Damen shrugged. "I do."

"Is the entertainment provided not to your favour?"

As directed by Kastor's gesture, Damen spared a glance for the pool of sparsely clad dancers - slaves of Akielos - who were currently flaunting themselves in intricate feats of flexibility and coordination to many an admiring pair of eyes and clapping applause from Akielon and Veretian lords and ladies alike. They were wonderful, truly, and Damen had long ago appreciated such arts; the weaving of arms and sweeping of legs, undulating in shapes and motions that he knew he would never be able to emulate should he practice for a thousand years. It was captivating.

Or it was to most. It didn't hold Damen's attention for long, however, because his gaze was drawn like a moth to flame back to Laurent. And not just Laurent, he knew. A familiar face, a youthful face and even younger than Damen remembered it, leaned at his side, expression drawnin a conspiratorial and just vaguely taunting manner. The sight of Nicaise sent an entirely different pang through Damen's chest.

"Well?" Kastor prompted.

"It's not that it isn't to my taste," Damen said, deliberately dropping his gaze to his plate and plucking at a sliver of meat that was so tender it nearly crumbled in his fingers. He wasn't really hungry, and had more than eaten his fill in the past two hours, but it was better than meeting Kastor's admittedly leering gaze. "I simply tire of staring at the same act indefinitely."

"Unless that 'act' happens to be the Prince of Vere," Kastor said a little smugly. He uttered a thoughtful hum that immediately drew Damen's sidelong gaze, tightening his jaw as he noticed Kastor settling a contemplative gaze in Laurent's direction. "Well, he is very pretty. I can't blame you for looking."

"Pretty," Damen echoed. The word wasn't nearly adequate.

"A bit cold, though. Probably freeze your cock off if you actually managed to drag him into your bed."

Kastor laughed in good-humour as he jokingly butted Damen's shoulder with his own. It was teasing, only spoken in jest, and was nothing less than how every soldier spoke, how Damen knew even the Veretians saw their prince.

And yet even so, Damen felt himself stiffen. He didn't do well with such words, and hadn't for a long time. What did Kastor know? What did any of them? And what was wrong with coldness, anyway? Laurent was an ice-prince, and he blasted his opponents aside with a chilling blizzard at barely a thought. That skill was was incredible; Damen had long come to appreciate the sharpness of Laurent's wit and intelligence, of his silver tongue, when it wasn't turned against him.

"Still, I would have to admit," Kastor said, when he'd resurfaced from his boisterous humour to speak once more. It was a struggle for Damen to meet his gaze without glaring. "I think the entertainment could be improved by something more, ah... representative of our historical relationship."

Damen stared at his brother sidelong. The thought that had crossed Kastor's mind clearly amused him, and though Damen knew that once, long ago, such amusement would have had Damen clamouring to know what it was and how he could encourage it, now it only left him wary. "And what would that be?"

Kastor shot him a glance that was far too mischievous for his age before rising to his feet and raised his goblet aloft. That was all that was needed for the hall to immediately smother their conversation; perhaps the respect afforded to the Akielon king's eldest son would fade with time, but in the novelty of the situation every eye was drawn towards him and every tongue stilled. Expectation reigned as Kastor paused before speaking.

"I have a suggestion," he announced, overlooking any care for fanfare. "In light of our newfound allegiance, I propose a challenge. A challenge of goodwill, if you would." He glanced towards Theomedes, then towards the Regent. Not towards Laurent, Damen noticed, and he couldn't help but feel disapproving for the slight. Disapproving, and just a little angry. "Your Majesty, our people have been grounded in war for many a year, but the act of battle itself is not without glory and beauty. Perhaps we can emulate this glory in the light of friendship?"

Murmurs of mixed confusion and speculation arose, but Damen was removed from it all. He knew where this was heading, and similarly knew he shouldn't allow it to unfold. And yet to stand up, to rebuff Kastor's request, would appear nothing if not undermining of the idea and his brother both.

"You have a proposition, Prince Kastor?" the Regent said, regarding Kastor curiously as his finger tapped on the edge of his own goblet.

Kastor bowed his head in a single nod. "I do. A duel, between Akielos and Vere." He smiled before repeating once more, "In an act of friendship, naturally."

Damen had to close his eyes briefly at Kastor's words. He'd known what he was going to suggest, but hearing it didn't ease him any. Akielos was a country grounded in strength of the sword and testing one's metal in a physical manner, while Vere, though masters of the weaponry and warfare themselves, more strongly emphasised the art of verbal intricacies. Kastor was, in essence, asking the Veretians to good-naturedly lose in a duel against an Akielon fighter.

Damen thought the Regent knew it, and perhaps some of his own courtiers and councillors, too, but none spoke in objection. How could they, when a bubble of excitement immediately arose with Kastor's words? The murmurs of confusion shifted to ones of excitement, hisses of surprise yet appreciation, and Damen knew that there would indeed be a duel.

What he hadn't expected – or maybe had simply hoped wouldn't happen – was for Laurent to rise silently to his feet. It took barely a moment for his movement to draw the attention of everyone in the hall, just as Kastor's had, and he waited expectantly for the mutters to cease before he spoke. When he did it was in cool, clipped tones. "If it is a duel you seek, Akielos Prince, then allow me to offer myself as an opponent. A dance between princes would be nothing short of a show, would it not?"

For a heartbeat of further surprise, silence reigned. Then it erupted; excitement redoubled, eagerness for what first Kastor and then Laurent had proposed thrumming like a visible cloud throughout the room. Damen felt Laurent's words like a punch in the gut. This… was not good.

Leaning towards Kastor, he barely managed to touch his elbow, to mutter a hasty, "Kastor, allow me to –" before Kastor was speaking with a fierce smile splitting his face. "I appreciate your readiness, Prince Laurent. And I accept your challenge with relish."

If the excitement had been palpable before, it positively exploded with his words. Chatter rose in an undulating wave as, in an instant, motion took hold of the room. Damen found himself caught in it and could do little but witness it unfold. He followed in the wake of his brother and the entirety of the attendants as Kastor strode across the room towards the doors, leading the way to the training grounds. No one stopped him. No one even tried.

It was like a scene from a theatre horror that unfolded before Damen, and he could do nothing about it. Not only would neither Laurent nor Kastor, not Theomedes nor the Regent, put a stop to what was ensuing should he request it, but it would cast nothing but dispersions upon Damen himself. It would shame him and his family, not to mention the Veretians that had so recently become their allies. Against his will and his better judgement, Damen held his tongue as the training grounds were cleared, a wide circle formed, and Kastor and Laurent stepped forwards.

Silence was even harder to maintain when Laurent suggested, in the spirit of verisimilitude, to fight with iron swords. Damen's vision blurred for a heart-stopping moment; a rush of fear tore through him, because surely, _surely_ it could only end in bloodshed.

Laurent was a master swordsman, Damen knew. Or at least he had been when Damen had met him. But he wasn't as good as Damen, and wouldn't be as good as Kastor. This duel could only end one way and Damen… he regretted that it would only make Laurent hate Akielos more.

Neither bothered to change from their ceremonial garb, though that was saying little given that neither were cumbersome nor greatly inhibiting. It all unfolded with eerie speed, and within what seemed like moments – had it really it only been moments? – Laurent and Kastor faced one another with swords raised.

Silence. A sea of attendants, and not a single one seemed to breath. Damen barely noticed them. He stared at the lull before the storm and felt his own breath still in his chest.

It was almost comical, the differences between the duellers – everything from their forms to the stances, their garments to their swords. While Kastor stood with stance wide and grounded, tall and broad with leather _pteruges_ hanging across his thighs and sleeveless breast piece doing nothing to hide the bunch of muscle as he raised his gladius, Laurent was his opposite. Straight and poised, wrapped in the familiarly laced pieces of Veretian attire, he stood like a slender willow before a charging bull, the estoc in his hand raised almost negligibly. The single-handed sword itself seemed nothing if not diminutive against the gladius.

The honour of initiating the fight was given to Theomedes with a graceful incline of the Regent's head. In a split second, the duel began. Damen couldn't move, couldn't shift his gaze, as Kastor, ever the initiator, launched himself forwards in a flurried attack.

Maybe it had been too long since Damen had seen Laurent fight. He'd underestimated him the first time he'd challenged Govart what now seemed so long ago, and had regretted it, had sworn to never do so again. But he'd been blind-sided by Laurent's youth and couldn't help but fear for him.

He shouldn't have. Perhaps his concern should have been for Kastor, for Laurent fought an entirely different battle. While Kastor was all force, the strength of his descending arm heavy enough to split a horse's skull clean in two, and each moment just as weighty, Laurent moved with every step premeditated, every act a preparation for the next. Kastor darted in close, swung his sword, and Laurent slipped out of the way to thrust and jab and slice n retaliation. When Kastor withdrew, skirting the circle of their duelling ring before launching himself forward in a windmilling blur of his sword, Laurent neatly parried. He twisted from reach, spinning behind Kastor to deliver a blow that Kastor only just managed to block.

Was this how it had looked when Damen and Laurent fought? Damen didn't know, but he hoped the confidence and condescension that Kastor wore, not wavering even when Laurent slipped past him time and time again, hadn't graced his own face. Kastor saw himself as superior with the arrogance of a master swordman that hadn't been beaten in many a year.

But he didn't know Laurent. He didn't know how Laurent fought, knew it even less than what Damen had at first. Kastor wasn't prepared for the springing dodges that left him swinging at empty air, the feints that were infinitely subtler than those taught in Akielos. Damen's own training had taught him that the most direct route, the fastest defeat of a foe, was always the best, and Kastor's similar tutelage was evidenced in his attack. He looked like a bear lunging and swiping at the darting attacks of a bird that fluttered around him, poking and prodding and jabbing just enough to annoy if not to actually injure.

Or at least not immediately.

Laurent drew first blood. It was a shallow scratch across the thigh that nonetheless welled red and dribbling, yet a gasp still arose from the captivated audience. For a moment, as Kastor lunged backwards out of reach and spared a for the injury, there was a pause. A long pause, in which no sound breached the stillness of the yard but for Laurent and Kastor's heavy breaths. Damen wasn't sure how long they'd been fighting, his sense of time long lost before his concern, but it must have been substantial. He could see the sprinkle of sweat touching Kastor's cheeks, that which just barely darkened Laurent's hairline, and noticed the slight lowering their swords for the touch of weariness that it was.

It should have ended then. Despite having left the audience stunned at the fact that Kastor – Prince Kastor of Akielos – had taken a blow from a man nearly half his age and with just as little experience. Theomedes even stepped forward, and though incredulity was unsuccessfully masked from face, it was apparent that he would put a stop to further fighting.

Kastor didn't give him a chance. He didn't seem as angered as Damen might have expected him to be, but Damen didn't like the smile touching his lips either. He trained his attention upon where Laurent stood, still yet with poised readiness before him. An instant later, and Kastor was leaping forward with sword raised once more.

No one objected. They should have, but they didn't. Not even Damen could say anything, could only watch with rapidly clenching fists, tensing shoulders and aching jaw for the tightness his teeth clenched with each aggressive slash of the resumed fight. It grew not faster but fiercer. Strikes met parries or deflections, the necessity of Laurent's thinner sword demanding he evade rather than force back with a block of blade on blade. The scuffle of feet and the clash of iron permeated the air, overwhelming even the pants of the two fighters.

Then Kastor landed a blow. It was as shallow as the one he'd received, and the same gasp rose from the audience in response. Neither dueller paused, even when Theomedes took another step towards the edge of the circle. Neither did they slow when Laurent managed another, or received one in turn a second later, a stain of redness appearing as little more than a spot on his dark blue garments.

Damen felt panic well. He knew he had to do something, but he didn't know what. He didn't know how. Should he demand it stop? Object that it had gone on for long enough? This was supposed to be a friendly duel, not an attempt to make a grisly patchwork of one's opponent. Damen watched with rising terror as blows were exchanged, as another landed and blossomed into a smear of blood dribbling down Kastor's arm.

He had to do something. He had to. Damen would be damned if he let this go on any longer, and even if it would shame both Laurent and Kastor to do so, he would step in.

Yet he'd barely taken the beginnings of that step when the flow of back and forth strikes ceased. It happened so suddenly that a gasp arose from the audience even in the absence of a blow falling.

Laurent slipped.

For anyone else, it would have seemed the climax. The moment preceding the finale. For anyone – except Damen. He knew it only too well, the feint that was so familiar and one that he similarly could never forget witnessing.

Kastor saw it, and through his panting exertion and the sweat that now slicked his face, he took the opening. It was too perfect, so perfect that Damen marvelled he didn't realise it for the feint that it was. In that moment, as time didn't seem to slow but Damen's mind raced, he knew one thing:

 _He's going to kill him. Not Kastor, but Laurent. Laurent's going to kill him_.

No circumstances could have been more poorly timed. None would have caused the most damage. And yet Damen knew it would happen.

Kastor lunged. He struck. He staggered – and Laurent swept himself out of the way. In a motion that was less a swordsman's technique and more the underhanded strike of a wrestler, Laurent spun to standing and struck out with a foot at the back of Kastor's leg. It could have been that he was wearied from the fight or merely that it was so unexpected, but Kastor fell. He hit the ground and an instant later Laurent's sword was arcing downward.

A collective gasp hissed through the yard. Not a single person seemed to breathe thereafter, not a single eye blinked, and no one moved in that moment when the sharp slap of iron striking skin split through the air. No one moved for a long, long moment, the sound of panting the only interruption to the silence.

Two sets of panting. _Two_.

Laurent stood above Kastor, his sword pressed to Kastor's cheek and the flat of the blade flush to his skin. Kastor didn't move, simply stared up at him, and the moment seemed to stretch eternally. Damen couldn't move himself, no matter how he longed to. He was torn between the desire to fling himself forwards and drag Laurent away from Kastor – more for Laurent's safety than for fear that he would finish what he had so nearly started – and the need to sink to his knees in relief.

Laurent was the first to respond. He flicked his sword from Kastor's face and, even at a distance, Damen could see a ruddy bruise erupt on Kastor's cheek. Laurent took a step towards him and, to what Damen knew as being the collective surprise and confusion of every onlooker, he lowered himself to a crouch at Kastor's side.

Damen didn't know what he said. The murmur of words was too quite to hear at a distance. It lasted only for a moment before Laurent rose and strode from the ring. He didn't spare another glance over his shoulder for Kastor, and only a brief moment of his attention for Theomedes. He did stop for the barest of seconds alongside the Regent, however, and the meeting of their gazes was loaded with unspoken weight that Damen wasn't sure anyone else perceived.

Then he was gone.

Life seemed to flood back into the audience with Laurent's departure, and Damen released a gasping breath he didn't realise he'd held. He was still staring in Laurent's wake, even as the onlookers fell into sharp mutters and rapid movement. He hardly noticed when Kastor appeared at his side until he spoke.

"He really is as cold as ice," Kastor said, and there was sharpness to his words that demanded Damen attend to him. Something between a smile and a snarl twisted his expression, his cheek rapidly darkening to a deeper red beneath the sheen of sweat, and his sword disappeared into its sheath. Damen recognised that expression; it was the warring combination of satisfaction for a good fight and the frustration of being beaten. He'd experienced it more than enough times with Kastor himself.

"What did he say to you?" Damen asked, swallowing thickly against the nausea that rose within him. When the heat of the moment had died, he realised just how close it had been. He'd underestimated Laurent once before and sworn he'd never do it again, and yet he had. Laurent could have very easily killed Kastor had he wanted to.

Kastor's snarling smile spread just a little wider as his own gaze was drawn in the direction Laurent had disappeared. He seemed to toy with the idea of voicing Laurent's words for a moment before finally deciding. "He said this was repayment, if only in part. That it was leagues less that I deserved."

Damen nodded slowly, the gesture catching Kastor's attention. "He hasn't forgotten," he said. "He never will."

Kastor frowned slightly, the curl of his lip fading. "About what happened in battle?" He shook his head. "What happens in war should stay on the battlefield."

"Even if it caused you the loss of your brother?" Damen couldn't help but ask.

Kastor didn't reply to that. He simply met Damen's gaze with his own frown for a moment before glancing once more after Laurent, staring through the crowd that was still clamouring with what they'd witnessed.

It could have gone better – much better – but it similarly could have ended so, so much worse. And throughout it all, as Damen allowed himself to be ushered by the masses back into the ceremony hall, he couldn't help but wonder:

 _It was me he felt such hatred for, if not this time._ The passing thought ached, and even more so that Damen longed for it. _What does it mean that I would want him to hate me again if I could have it all back?_


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I am SO sorry for the lateness of this update. But, rest assured, that I won't leave it as long next time. I promise. I couldn't be so cruel as to leave such a cliff-hanger (and please bear with me on this one; I SWEAR I'm not a cruel person. I promise).

_Laurent's glare wasn't a genuine glare. Though it was angry, Damen now knew the difference between sincere anger – those induced by idiocy of those around him or the incompetence of his inferiors – and one rising from introspective contemplation._

_This glare was definitely the latter._

_He hadn't moved since Damen had awoken, and Damen was almost reluctant to move for fear of what he might do should his attention be drawn. Laurent was never fiercely angry. He never snapped and raged, never tore through the palace like a vengeful storm and left physical destruction in his wake. When Laurent was angry, he grew ice cold. Just as he always was at his worst. Just as he had been when Damen had first met him._

_Damen had hoped to melt that ice, and by and large he thought he had. Or at least he had when it concerned Damen himself. There was only one week a year when Laurent seemed to refreeze. One week in which Damen didn't even need the reminder of the seasons to alert him to date of the calendar, to the memory of a past long behind them._

_A past behind them, but not_ left _behind. Not for Laurent, and not for Damen either._

_"Are you going to Marlas?"_

_Laurent was perched on the seat beside the window, glaring through the glass in what was less of a squint for the light illuminating him in a halo and more of a scowl. How he managed to look so breathtakingly beautiful, so utterly, untouchably perfect when he wore such an expression, Damen would never understand. He didn't really want to. There were some things he didn't need to know, things that were beyond his comprehension._

_Some things, though… others things he felt he would very much like to understand._

_Laurent made a visible effort to tuck his scowl behind a mask of cool apathy when he glanced over his shoulder to Damen. He did that sometimes. Usually in that week, the refreezing week of the tragedy that took place more than ten years before. The week Laurent had lost his family and his world had been torn apart. The week Damen had come to regret the most in his entire life._

_Laurent stared for a long moment. A long, long moment in which, from his recline in the bed they shared, Damen bore witness to the sun further illuminating his features into a golden glow. Then, with a slight dip of his chin, Laurent nodded. "Yes."_

_Damen opened his mouth to speak, to ask the question that arose on his tongue every year:_ Can I come with you? _He longed to, desperately longed for there to be someone at his side when Laurent lost himself in a past he seemed unable to escape from no matter how much time had passed or how much he'd forgiven._

_But Damen didn't ask. He never asked, because he didn't think he deserved to. He regretted that he had killed Auguste, regretted it more than anything in the world, and yet he couldn't change the past. Who would know what the future would hold if he could change that past?_

_Who, indeed, could know such a thing?_

_So instead, Damen lay and watched as Laurent stared at him for a moment longer before turning his gaze back out the window. He longed for a brother than he'd lost half a life ago, longed for him in a way that Damen never did for Kastor. Auguste had been cruelly torn from Laurent, and perhaps he would never recover from that._

_Damen watched him until the sun fully rose. Laurent stared, but he no longer glared. That was usual too. He seemed to hold an overwhelming anger within him for but moments, a cold, sharp anger that was perhaps even momentarily directed at Damen, but after that it faded. It faded to dissipated but wistfulness and nostalgia, an aching pain like that of an old injury that had never properly healed. Laurent was strong, perhaps the strongest person Damen had or ever would meet, but his family had always been his vice. In every way._

_At times Damen wished he truly could change the past. That he could journey to that battle at Marlas years ago and stay his hand. Laurent's father might still have died, the conspiracy unavoidable, but Auguste? Auguste might have survived had Damen not faced him. If he had… if Damen hadn't killed him, would things have been different? Better?_

_Laurent rose from his seat with a sigh that Damen wouldn't have noticed had he not been watching him close enough to see rather than hear it. He spared Damen a final glance, and it was no longer even slightly angry. Laurnet was purely introspective, acknowledging, and preparing for the day ahead. Damen watched as he strode with sure steps from the room, his familiar straight posture and the unshakeable set of his shoulders reaffirming itself._

_Would he change it? Damen couldn't help but wonder. Would it have been better if he could change that one aspect of the past? Would he have met Laurent, fallen in love with him in an entirely new world, and had a_ better _world? Would Laurent have been spared from forging himself into a blade of nothing but sharp edges, honed by his uncle, his duty and his vengeance?_

_Abruptly Damen desperately wanted to know. He had to. Could it have been better? He couldn't change it but perhaps… perhaps he could just see. Perhaps he could know._

_For some reason, that knowledge felt vitally important. Damen didn't know what he was hoping for – an excuse? Something to alleviate him of his guilt? An answer for how to fix that one week, that one memory, that still plagued Laurent and gnawed at him like a dog worrying a bone? He didn't know, but as Damen pushed himself up to sitting, he decided._

_There was only one place he could go to discover such a reality. He hastened from the bed with Delpha and her oracle playing on his mind._

* * *

Nearly two years after the treaty found the alliance between Akielos and Vere in a perpetual state of stunned wariness.

It wasn't peace. To an ignorant eye it might have seemed to be, but to Damen, who had seen how it could when he and Laurent forged the alliance between their countries through sheer determination, it was clearly something other. There was no confidence in the finality of the decision, no lowering of walls, regardless of how Theomedes might preach of the rightness of their decision, or how the Regent might bow his head and acknowledge that it was indeed the right decision for both countries.

It wasn't right. It didn't feel _right_ , and not how it _should_ be. There was so much about the world that Damen had lived in for the past confounding play of revisited years, the years that sped and slowed in jarring turns so that his sense of time was entirely skewed, that he couldn't let himself accept it. He couldn't let himself acknowledge that this was how the world should be.

Akielos and Vere weren't allies. Not really. Not in any of the ways that counted on a fundamental level, though on paper their names were linked. The Regent stood in power, and Damen didn't think he needed his variable experience with Veretians to know that the Regent's position was the root cause of that wrongness.

The Akielons were on edge around the Veretians, and the Veretians, though none prodded into violence, spat barbed words at their supposed allies that were so thickly veiled by sweetness as to be unnoticeable but by the most observant of victims. Not even Damen, who spent more and more time in Vere in the hopes of smoothing the relationship between their two peoples, was accepted. He knew he was still glared upon with a sharp eye and barely masked distrust, despite that he held his own anger, frustration, and desperation in check.

It was a constant battle.

More than that, however, even in Akielos, all was far from well. The Akielons themselves grew uneasy when the subject of Vere arose, and though Theomedes frequently declared that their alliance was 'far better than conflict had been', Damen knew the councillors disagreed. More than that, Kastor himself was very open in his disagreement, and Damen didn't think it was solely because he'd been thoroughly trounced in a 'friendly' duel between princes years before. Kastor didn't want an allegiance; that much was apparent. On top of that, Damen knew his nose had been thoroughly knocked out of joint by Theomedes' proclamations of Damen's political astuteness. To hear Theomedes speak it, the treaty had arisen at Damen's behest almost single-handedly. That he was proud of his son and heir because of it was no secret from anyone.

But irrationally worst of all – a or to Damen at least because he knew that in the greater scheme of things the relationship between two powerful countries should have been of paramount importance – was that Laurent hated him.

It wasn't with a fiery anger, for Damen had never seen Laurent rage. It wasn't even with open aggression, a sharp tongue lathered with harsh words and a curl of the lip. Laurent spoke with Damen when he journeyed to Vere, exchanging words of forced politeness broken by snide comments that could just as less than a slight, but there was no more than that. And though he never glared at Damen, not like he did at Kastor when the two of them encountered one another, there was hardness in his gaze. Hardness, flatness, and unforgiving light that forbade any attempts at mending the disaster that was a relationship they'd never shared.

It was because of Laurent that Damen found himself spending almost as much time in Vere as he did in Akielos.

At that point, nearly two years after their treaty had been signed, Damen found himself once more in the Veretian palace. He had his own designated rooms, receiving them years before when his role as the political go-between had been firmly established, and they were almost comfortable. Only almost, however, for it hurt to be in the palace with Laurent, barely half a building away, and yet so far.

Barely half a week into his stay, however, everything changed. Night had fallen, and relative peace had settled with it. Damen had long since sent his own men to their beds with nothing but the requisite guards posted outside his door, for even with allies, even after years in their company, no Akielon prince would ever be deemed safe in Veretian walls. Not in this life, anyway.

 _In another, it would be different_ , Damen thought, but had to thrust the whispered voice aside. It would do him no good, but would only drive the knife of regret and longing deeper.

Damen was seated upon the couch in the very centre of the room, legs propped upon the cushions and hand curled around a goblet of wine as he read through the missive the latest courier from Akielos had delivered. Given that Damen could spend up to weeks in Vere, he'd requested long ago that he be kept updated with the happenings in the country. Kastor had asked not quite jokingly what need he had for such news when he was clearly so comfortable in Vere, but the missives hadn't stopped.

Not that they were in Kastor's hand, of course. There was more than a mild disagreement between brothers arising, and Damen could only be resigned to the inevitable. That, at least, hadn't changed with this lifetime.

Taking a sip of the wine – he'd partaken of perhaps a little too much that night, but the nature of the missive demanded it – Damen turned his eyes back to scanning the slanted lettering once more. It wasn't good, and not because the state of Akielos was in disarray. Overall, the news could not have been much more favourable, but Damen saw the fracture in that perfection.

_King Theomedes has taken to his bed with an ailment once more, though physicians assure the council that his illness is naught more than a temporary spell and shall be easily remedied with…_

One line. Just one line had Damen pouring himself another goblet and attempting to drown himself and his worries in the taste of sweetened alcohol. That was it. His father was ailing, and Damen couldn't help but recall when it had happened before, when Theomedes had fallen ill not to disease but to a poison that had inevitably killed him.

Damen didn't think this was the same. He didn't think it was exactly reminiscent to what it had been in the life that had found him chained as a slave and carted off to Vere the night of his father's death. Theomedes was indeed unwell, but the series of ailments that afflicted him appeared to be cyclical. He would retire for a brief respite under the weight of some sickness, only to recover for months at a time before becoming afflicted by another debilitating illness.

Damen would still have perhaps suspected deliberate intent, except that he assured himself it was otherwise by routinely rotating the physicians in his father's attendance. Each claimed the same: that it was a thickness of the lungs, and that their efforts towards clearing the airways were successful but only briefly before the thickness returned. Damen didn't really understand what they meant, didn't understand the medical sciences at all, but he didn't think such could be afflicted by poisons. Not by any he knew, anyway.

So Damen could only wait. He waited, read the missives from Akielos, and drink enough wine that he could for a moment convince himself that everything would be alright. That it would be different this time and that, though his father was unwell, and though the alliance was shaky at best and Laurent hated him, Kastor and the Regent weren't conspiring to their overall demise.

Damen could hope. That was the best that he could do, and little else.

Taking another long draw of wine, Damen's attention was diverted from the curl of paper towards the door as a sharp rap of knuckles resounded upon heavy wood. Glancing up, Damen lowered both goblet and letter into his lap and straightened in his seat. It was with only a little difficulty, the fuzziness clearing from his head slightly as he did so. "Enter," he called.

An unfamiliar face, a man garbed in the fitted dress of a palace soldier, stepped into through the door. He bowed slightly, just enough to be respectful, before straightening and standing to attention. "The prince has requested your attendance at your convenience, Your Majesty."

Damen blinked. Then he stared for a long moment. Maybe it was the wine fogging his intelligence, but he couldn't make sense of the information he'd just been given. "What?"

"Prince Laurent," the man reiterated, a touch of exasperation dampening his words. "He has requested you attend him."

Damen blinked once more, staring a little longer. Then, before he even realised what he was doing, he'd placed letter and goblet upon the stand beside the couch and straightened further. "Now? He wants to see me know?"

The man adopted an expression that was far too bold. Damen wanted to smack the slight smirk from his lips, though refrained and instead rose to standing with barely a waver. It was no secret to anyone that he wanted Laurent. Everyone seemed to know it, to acknowledge it and have their own opinion on the matter. Everyone, that was, except for Laurent, who only seemed to chill further when the barest mention of the subject arose in their vicinity. Far be it from the manipulation and abuse of that knowledge that Damen had seen long ago with the Patran prince Torveld, Laurent seemed nothing if not disgusted by the idea.

That had changed too, from the life Damen knew and loved. It was something entirely different that Laurent looked at him as he did, and it hurt.

Damen didn't know why Laurent would be asking for him. He barely spoke a word to Damen when they were in the same room together unless it was with sarcasm disguised as politeness. Only once had Laurent approached Damen directly, and it was but a year after the treaty had been signed. Out in the training yard, when Damen had sought to vent his frustrations for a particularly vexing conversation with the Regent, he hadn't noticed Laurent stood in the archway from the inner halls. It was only when, in a thick lather of sweat and panting heavily, Damen had lowered his sword and turned the sawdust-laden that he saw him at all. He'd ground to a halt immediately as he beheld Laurent leaning casually against the stone arch, arms folded and entirely relaxed. Not a hint of expression touched his face.

Damen had stared for a long moment, waiting for Laurent to break their mutual silence, but he didn't seem inclined. Laurent would be capable of outwaiting a stone for his patience at times. Clearing his throat, Damen had spoken for him. "Prince Laurent. Did you need me for something?"

Laurent had stared in silence for almost as long again before replying. "You lied to me."

"I'm sorry?"

"You lied." Laurent's face had been utterly blank, and yet Damen could feel the coldness emanating from him. "You said that your brother was a better swordsman than you are."

Damen had opened his mouth to speak but found himself bereft of words. It hadn't been what he'd expected Laurent to say, but then he didn't know what that expectation was anyway. Not from _this_ Laurent. "I'm not sure of that," he'd finally murmured, dipping his chin slightly.

"What exactly did you hope to achieve for lying?" Laurent had said, casual curiosity hiding something deeper and far colder beneath. Damen fought not to shift in place in discomfort. "What did you -? No." Shaking his head, Laurent had pushed himself from the wall and straightened. "No, I don't believe I want to know, actually."

Damen's chin had snapped upwards as Laurent turned to leave. He hadn't the chance to ask him to wait, however, for, like a ghost vanishing through a wall, Laurent disappeared. It had been a thoroughly dissatisfying conversation, as much because nothing had become of it as because it only reminded Damen once more of how different everything was between them.

Damen couldn't fathom what Laurent would possibly want to speak to him about this time any better. It was in the middle of the night, at that, though Damen recalled that Laurent hadn't been much of a sleeper at that age anyway. "What does the prince want?" he asked the Veretian soldier.

The solider visibly struggled not to roll his eyes. Veretians had not once attempted to hide their condescension towards Akielos and her people. "I think that's something you'd be better taking up with the prince," he said, then he stepped backwards out of the room in an indicative gesture.

Damen couldn't help but follow. He would always come at Laurent's behest, regardless of whether it was in this life – this horrible, altered, _wrong_ life in which Laurent dismissed him entirely. Another pair of guards in addition to the one who had poked his head through Damen's door stood alongside Damen's own men, and without a word they all fell into formation around him and started down the corridor.

It wasn't far to Laurent's quarters – surprisingly, given that Damen would have thought that the uneasiness between their countries would have granted them more distance. Or maybe it was some plot of the Regent's; Damen wouldn't put it past him. The Regent was a snake that hid behind a benevolent smile and an obligingly respectful façade.

Two of Laurent's own guards were stationed outside of his door. Not Jord or Orlant, Damen noticed, which he disregarded with only an inward sigh of further regret. He had never been able to speak to them either, to become familiar with them as he had been in another life. It was only _his_ past, he always had to remind himself, because this was something other. In this life, Jord and Orlant hated him simply for being an Akielon prince. Or at least they didn't favour him; neither would ever consider attempting an amicable relationship with him, not as they had once shared.

Both nameless guards stepped aside at their approach. Damen paused for a moment as one of his escorts knocked on the door. He took a deep breath and abruptly regretted partaking of quite so much wine that night. He wasn't dizzy exactly, but he would have preferred a clear head to confront Laurent. He didn't know what to expect on the other side of that door.

As soon as he stepped within, Damen was assaulted by nostalgia. The suites were familiar, _achingly_ so, from their pale walls and furnishings to the wide window overlooking the gardens from a balcony. The spread of a rich rug atop which sat a wide couch of cream was so gloriously yellow it was almost golden. Damen barely spared the room a cursory glance, however, because his attention was drawn with their natural magnetism towards Laurent seated upon that couch.

He was dressed down for the night. Not particularly casually, but the severely fitted attire he always wore, with too many laces and maximal coverage of every hint of skin, was absent. In its place was a clean, pale shirt, almost as pale as his skin, and similarly pale trousers that pooled around his ankles where they folded along the length of the couch. Laurent was immaculate, graceful in stillness, and utterly beautiful. The hint of skin at his collar, at his wrists, the suggestion of shape so completely hidden at ever other moment was turned breathtakingly tempting. He was perfect, as Damen thought he always was, and as so often arose within him with a sharp longing, he wanted nothing so much as to touch him, to talk to him, to be with him and love him and to have even a hint of that love returned.

There wasn't even a shadow of that love in Laurent's expression as he raised his gaze from the book he was pouring over to the sound of the door opening. Damen stepped three slow strides into the room before pausing as the flatness of Laurent's expression dipped into repulsion for a bare moment before it smoothing into cool contemplation.

Straightening in his seat, Laurent closed the book and rested it upon the couch at his side. "Prince Damianos," he said, his tone as cool and seamless as his expression.

Damen offered a short bow before planting his feet widely. He didn't know what to expect and could only hope that the aversion he'd glimpsed so briefly wouldn't be a precursor for the conversation that would follow. "Prince Laurent. You requested my presence?"

Laurent stared at him for a moment, blinking slowly in a flutter of golden eyelashes that he undoubtedly didn't mean to be as enchanting as it was but left Damen short for breath regardless. He likely always would be. He was so distracted that only as the thin touch of a frown settled into a furrow of confusion on Laurent's brow did he even notice something was amiss. "I did not send for you."

For a heartbeat, the words didn't register in Damen's ears. One heartbeat and then another, and in a second Damen was thrown back to another time, another instance where he himself was different yet where everything else was the same.

The escort of unfamiliar guards.

The empty room with door left ajar.

Laurent's momentary confusion and then –

A sharp thump from the hallway snapped Damen's attention over his shoulder. He barely had time to turn, however, his hand dropping down to the knife at his waist that was all the weapon he was allowed carry in the palace of Chastillon. A split second later and the door was flung widely open. The five Veretian guards poured in, swords drawn, and they weren't the thinner estocs favoured in Vere but the wide, flat blades of an Akielon gladius.

It all suddenly made sense to Damen. In a horrible, gut-wrenching moment, it made painful sense. He'd witnessed the assassination attempt before, had been in the very same room, and this one unfolded almost exactly the same way. The only differences were that this time Damen was wavering beneath a belly full of wine and the guards numbered not three but five.

This was not good. It was – it was a _disaster_.

Damen barely caught a glimpse of his own guards sprawled lifeless in the hallway beyond the door before a pair of attackers were upon him, the other's flowing past him. At any other time, had Damen his own weapon and a clear head, he could have taken them. They weren't exceptional fighters.

But he was bordering on drunk, and the only weapon of defence in his possession was a long knife.

Damen still fought. He still fought with everything he had, and it was almost good enough. It was a fierce, hard battle, the twin gladius' swinging towards him in awkward jabs, and his deflections and ducks just avoided injury. Damen evaded and danced in a stumble of feet before leaping forwards and slashing with his knife. He dodged and flung an attack, striking at one of the assassins and feeling the heavy jarring and splitting of his knife meeting flesh and slicing through. The sudden thundering of his heartbeat in his ears was nearly deafening.

He felled one. The other landed a blow, but it was minimal, and in the heat of the moment Damen barely felt it. Then he downed the second moments later. The man had barely hit the ground before, in a tumbling lunge, Damen scooped up his dropped sword and turned towards Laurent and his own attackers.

He was just in time to hear a cry of vicious and furious pain.

Damen saw it all in a blur. He saw two of the remaining attackers where they'd fallen, sprawled on the ground with only one twitching with any hint of life. He saw the third still standing, his sword raised and poised to strike. He saw blood streaking the floor, seeping into the thick rug, saw it staining Laurent's shirt a deep, dark scarlet where he had folded to the ground. Laurent was… he was a slumping mess with a hand clasped to his throat as his fingers failed to stem a torrent of throbbing blood from gushing forth and splattering to the floor.

Damen saw red. He saw the red of blood as it mingled with fury, and in that moment a hint of sobriety swept through him and he launched himself across the room. The final assailant didn't see him coming and didn't have the chance to protect himself. He was on the ground in an instant, head rolling.

The clatter of Damen's fallen sword hitting the floor hadn't even faded before he was on his knees and reaching for Laurent. Laurent himself didn't even seem capable of sitting upright, the arm not clasped to his throat, visibly shaking as it propped him upright. There was blood; so, so much blood. It stained Laurent's pale clothes, his even paler skin and face turned ashen by pain and blood-loss.

Damen found himself gasping. His heart was in his throat as he reached for Laurent, his own hands trembling and desperate to do _something_ , but Laurent wasn't having it. Even broken, even swaying and fading as he was, his glare was repelling, and he flung his propping hand towards Damen in an attempt to deflect his reaching arms. "Don't touch me," he hissed, and that was all he managed before he toppled to the floor.

Everything broke in fractures after that. Damen still reached for Laurent as he slumped to the floor, gasping and rapidly bathing in a pool of his own blood, but he never managed to touch him. A throbbing in his ears beat with the resounding force of a struck gong, but it did nothing to drown out Damen's ragged breaths. It did nothing to muffle the clatter of guards as they flooded through the room.

Damen reached for Laurent but no, he didn't touch him. He never managed it, not even for a second. The guards were upon him and he was being dragged away in jerks and jolts of time and motion that didn't seem to fit together properly. Damen tried to object, tried to struggle, but panic had erupted within him and he couldn't think. All he could see was Laurent as he was rapidly overwhelmed by frantic guards, saw him close his beautiful, hate-filled eyes closed as his hand squeezed the gaping wound in his throat.

Then he was gone. Damen was torn from the room and bodily dragged from the scene of destruction, struggling all the way. A hoarse, desperate cry, a plea that he be put _down_ , echoed from the walls. Only distantly did Damen realise that the voice, the desperate, heartbroken pleading, was his own.

* * *

He wasn't kept in his suite as a prince should be. Perhaps his imprisoners didn't deem him worthy of it, and it didn't take Damen much of a leap to deduce why. He recalled the last time, when the assassination attempt had happened before; those assassins had struck with the attempt to pin that attack on Akielos, using Damen as a scapegoat. This time would have been no different, regardless of the fact that they knew he was Prince Damianos.

The cell was barely twelve feet across. Plain, with nothing but a single high window that afforded a view of nothing but an opposite wall. A hard bed stretched along the length of one wall, a pot for necessities standing in the corner. It was unremarkable and, with nothing to draw the attention, Damen was left to sit with his thoughts.

To dwell and to sink into horror.

It had happened. The attack had happened in a way that Damen had only sparingly considered a possibility had he not been there the first time around in his old life, how it would have unfolded had he not acted fast enough. He knew it was the Regent's doing because Laurent had told him. He'd told him in a life that was different, and better, and lacked the horror of what Damen had witnessed days before.

Days? Had it really been days? He wasn't sure. Time was jumping and speeding, slowing and dragging, as it did at times in this newer, warped life. Damen couldn't tell if he'd been locked in the cell for a single day or a whole month.

Not that it mattered. Damen didn't have the headspace to think of anything else. He barely even considered what this would mean for himself; Prince Damianos of Akielos, a suspected murderer and conspirator against the Crown Prince of Vere.

Murderer… Even the very thought turned Damen's gut. He didn't know. He didn't know if Laurent was alright – there had been _so much blood_ , and Laurent had _closed his eyes_ – and that was the worst part of it.

An indefinite length of time passed that Damen couldn't follow. He wasn't visited by anyone, which he detachedly realised as being strange. Even as a suspected murderer, he was still a prince. It was strange perhaps even _because_ he was a murderer: wouldn't the courtiers and councillors, the Regent in all of his false concern, want to question him?

Damen wanted to be questioned. He sorely wanted it, just so that he could ask his own questions in return. Or, more specifically, one question:

Was Laurent alright?

When it did arrive, when the opportunity arose in the form of a soldier other than the one who brought him plain, simplistic meals, it wasn't the Regent. Damen was almost horrified to recognise that the man who approached was Jord.

Not that he was even recognisable as Jord. His face was drawn and pale, had aged more than it had been even in the later years after the peace between Akielos and Vere that Damen remembered with fondness. He carried himself heavily, and when he stopped before the bars of Damen's cells – just bars, no grated door, and yet too thinly spaced to stick more than a hand through – it was to lean heavily against them.

There passed a long moment of silence between them in which Damen could only stare at Jord's hooded eyes. Jord regarded him with lifelessly, and Damen felt his gut clench sickeningly for the sight of it. "Jord," he attempted to say, to begin a conversation and to pose his desperate question, but his voice was a hoarse croak, cracking from disuse.

"Why did you do it?" Jord said, overriding his attempt. His voice was almost as harsh as Damen's.

Damen shook his head slowly, wincing as his neck twinged. He hadn't moved from his seat against the wall, leaning forwards with elbows resting upon his knees, for what must have been a long time. It hurt to move. "I didn't. I would never –"

"I thought you wanted this alliance," Jord interrupted him once more. "You were always the one who pushed for it."

"I did. I do want it."

"I stood up for you. When everyone else claimed you were nothing but a brutal monster like every other Akielon, I gave you a chance." Jord shook his head, his face visibly hardening and jaw jutting forwards. "I _stood up_ for you."

"Jord –"

"I thought you wanted him, too." This time Jord's words were nearly lost in a growl that was so harsh the words were nearly indiscernible. "Everyone thought it. How could we not with the way you looked at him?" Another shake of his head. "Why would you hurt him?"

Damen stared at him with a renewed ache, both for Laurent and for Jord, his once-friend. He hadn't known that Jord thought anything of him, let alone highly. It hurt like a wound atop one that already existed. "I did." He swallowed. "I _do_."

"Then how could you do it?" Jord whispered. His words were barely discernible, and in an instant his face crumpled into misery and a pain so fierce that it stoppered Damen's breath in his throat. "How could you…?"

"Jord," Damen managed to choke out. "Please, tell me. Tell me he's alright. Tell me he survived, that he was saved, that –"

Jord smacked the bars of the cell so fiercely that Damen swore he could feel the vibrations through his feet. He didn't move as Jord bared his teeth in a snarl and shook his head almost violently. "You don't deserve to know. You don't deserve to ask me that."

"Please, Jord, I just need to know he's alive. I swear, I would never hurt him –"

But Jord was gone. Thrusting himself away from the bars, he turned and strode at a near run down from the cell, disappearing in an instant. Damen stared after him, wide-eyed and terrified. He didn't know. Jord hadn't told him anything and he _didn't know_. Damen could do _nothing_.

Bowing his head, Damen once more folding himself nearly in half and gave himself up to his pointless thoughts. The image of blood and pale skin, now so familiar as to permanently pain the inside of his eyelids, flooded his mind and he couldn't find it within himself to shake it loose. He wasn't even sure he wanted to.

* * *

The Regent came after a time. It was a long time, Damen knew, though he wasn't sure _how_ he knew. He couldn't tell if 'long' was days, or weeks, or months, but he knew it was a time. He couldn't even keep track of his meals. Sometimes, Damen would hear the soldier arrive with a tray, but the effort to rise from his seat on the floor, to shake his thoughts clean and seek to fill his belly with the meagre leavings, was too great, and oftentimes the tray was taken away untouched. Damen didn't notice it after a time, only occasionally rising when hunger gnawed fiercely enough at his belly as to seep through the sickening, nauseating pains in his gut that constantly afflicted him.

The Regent arrived with two men in tow. Soldiers, not councillors, and Damen didn't know why he even bothered with them. It wasn't like Damen was a threat; not behind bars. The Regent's expression was as calmly benevolent as ever, though there was a touch of sadness and regret that Damen knew was entirely false. He'd never been deceived by the Regent's posturing. Not like the rest of the world was. He had Laurent to thank for opening his eyes in that regard.

"Prince Damianos," the Regent said with a sigh. If Damen closed his eyes to the beguiling smile, he could almost believe he truly was regretful. "Perhaps I should apologise for leaving you unattended for so long. I'm sure you can understand the difficulties that have arisen as a result of recent circumstances."

Damen stared up at the Regent with a bowed head. Not in supplication but because he couldn't bring himself to move enough to straighten. The weight of the world seemed to have settled upon his shoulders, the exhaustion of reliving the blood and horror again and again, in every second of his wakeful and sleeping mind. Damen was haunted, and that haunting didn't abandon him even in the face of the Regent. If anything, it only accentuated it.

Anger. Hatred. On a detached level, Damen knew such feelings arose and flooded from him towards the Regent. A part of him wanted to leap to his feet, to dart a hand through the bars and clasp the Regent's throat, squeezing until not a whisper of breath remained and the fragile bones of his neck bent and snapped. But he didn't move. He only stared.

"You might have guessed that there has been much trial faced in recent weeks. I'm sure you would understand. Even a traitor and assassin could conceive necessities."

"What happened to him?" Damen ground out. He hadn't spoken since Jord had faced him hours or days or weeks ago, and his voice was gravelly. "Is he -?"

"Your father," the Regent overrode him. The unexpectedness of those two words drew Damen up short. "It does not please me to be the bearer of this sorry news, even to one such as yourself, Damianos, for all of your sins. And yet none save I would be capable of bestowing it."

"What… are you…?" Damen felt himself slowly straighten from his slouch. His back protested the motion, but he ignored it.

The Regent's face was twisted with false sympathy. "I regret to be the informant of your father's passing but days ago. A thickening of the lungs, I believe it was, and likely only exacerbated by the distress he felt for your current circumstances and the betrayal of your actions." The Regent shook his head. "So much loss in such a short time. Your brother must be wracked with such grief; not only his father but his brother, lost to him."

Damen couldn't breathe. He stared at the Regent where he stood tall and calm, cool and even relaxed, and the nauseating roiling in his gut only intensified. _No… no, he can't mean…_

"A truly regretful situation. And when the allegiance of our countries was flourishing so promisingly." The Regent shook his head sagely with that same false regret. "A truly sorry turn of events. The death of three royals within the space of but months…"

Had Damen had anything in his stomach he would have immediately lost it across the floor. He felt every inch of himself grow icily cold, his fingertips numb, his heart stop in his chest. _No…_ He was falling forward from the bed and onto his knees before he even realised what he was doing, but the added solidity did nothing to ground him. _No… no, it can't be._

"Prince Damianos, you have been charged with the conspiracy and subsequent murder of Prince Laurent of Vere." The Regent's voice rung without emotion, without sympathy, without the pain of loss. "You will be tried before the council, as befits your station, but… well, I hardly think there is much of a question in the matter."

Damen hardly heard the words. They were barely an echo in his ears, barely seeping through the pounding in his skull as his world was turned on its head. He'd lost. He'd lost everything. Laurent, and his father, and… and _Laurent_ …

Nothing mattered anymore.

* * *

It was wrong.

This wasn't how it should be.

Auguste should have lived. He should have survived and stood alongside Damen to join their countries in an alliance that stood the tests of time. Just as Laurent had said they would. Just as Laurent had wistfully speculated, a friendship between princes that flourished into something more as Damen was given the chance to truly meet the younger son and fall in love with one who wasn't broken and reformed into a hardened version of himself by circumstance.

But it hadn't worked. That wasn't how it had happened at all.

The alliance was shattered.

Theomedes was dead, and Damen couldn't bring himself to believe that it was solely his illness that had taken him.

And Laurent… Laurent was gone. Was dead. That more than anything was what tore Damen apart.

 _It's not supposed to be like this. It's not. This is wrong. This isn't how it should be. It's not supposed to be like this…_ Damen chanted the words over and over against as he knelt on the floor of his cell for an indefinite time.

This wasn't how it should be.

This wasn't…

This wasn't how…

As Damen felt what little was left of his sanity come apart at the seams, fraying and unravelling, he bowed over upon himself and pressed his forehead to the cold stone floor between his legs. He would have his trial soon, and he expected them to come for him any second. He would be executed, but for whatever reason, Damen couldn't bring himself to care anymore. He'd lost, lost it all, and it didn't matter.

_This isn't how it was supposed to be._

Squeezing his eyes together fiercely, blocking himself from the world, Damen let go.


	5. Chapter 5

With a harsh gasp, Damen flung himself backwards. The oracle's cool, pale hand released its tight grasp from his fingers and allowed him to fall. He stumbled backwards, slamming onto the marble floors of the temple with jarring impact, and his breath gushed from him.

Damen hurt. He ached all over, yet it wasn't a physical pain. The wound of what he'd just felt, of what he'd seen and what he'd experienced and the fierce, overwhelming, destructive pain of loss that had swallowed him from the inside out, still stung like the aftermath pain of a burn.

Damen lay on his back and panted heavily. It was night; that much he could see, though he recalled detachedly that it had only been afternoon when he'd entered the temple. The cooling air wasn't quite cold, but it was enough to offer some relief for his feverish skin, chilling the sweat that coated him and dampened his hair. The high roof of the temple above him was darkly white, the shadows coalescing and slowly roiling in nothing if not a calming manner. Damen stared, unable to move, as his gasps slowly, slowly eased.

All of it battered away at his senses. Every single second of it. Possibilities assaulted his mind, and Damen felt himself flinch all over again. He knew where he was now, and he knew what had happened. He recalled he'd taken himself to the Oracle of Delpha and asked to know, to understand what could have been. He knew that the years he'd spent reliving an alternate past had flashed by in the space of an afternoon, and though he could remember it all in sharp, painful clarity, it was disjointed. Almost a dream, even.

 _A dream. That wasn't a dream. It was a horrible, horrible nightmare._ Out of all of it, the memory of Laurent collapsing in a spreading pool of his own blood was the most vivid. It was what hurt the most.

Tightness like a stinging sensation in his eyes urged Damen to raise a hand to he face and scrub at the pain. His throat was choked and his fingers trembled no matter how hard he fought to still the shaking.

It hurt. It hurt beyond belief. Damen knew that Laurent's death would be the end of him, but he hadn't known just how completely until that moment.

It was a struggle to move, but Damen finally managed. His body felt heavy, as though he'd been running through the intense heat of an Akielon summer for hours on end to collapse in the shade at sundown. He forced himself, however, and after a battle against the heaviness of his limbs that only began to recede as he sat upright, Damen rose and clambered onto his knees.

The temple was empty. Or almost empty, with none but the oracle bowed on her knees before him. The pillars stood as large as tree trunks, their smooth whiteness glowing in the night and melting into the marble floors and roof like roots and a spreading canopy respectively. A hint of a breeze wove through the pillars from the open doors, raking through the shadows that weren't driven away by the silver glow of the moon beaming through the high temple windows, but it wasn't cold. Not really. If anything, Damen clung to that breeze like a lifeline.

It only enforced what he knew must be so, only emphasised what he desperately wanted to believe was the truth – that the horror of what he'd seen, what he'd witnessed and what could have been, wasn't reality. Even the passing thought of it – blood, death, the aching, tearing loss – was enough to turn his gut and send him almost dizzily to the ground.

But Damen kept himself upright. He propped his hands on either side of himself and leaned forward slightly on his knees as his gasps faded from near sobs into merely heavy breathing. Then, finally, slowly, he raised his gaze towards the oracle.

She was a young woman, as all of the oracles were and had been. Shrouded in robes of white and red, her hood remained draped around her face as it had been when Damen had first arrived. She stared at him with wide, dark eyes, silent and waiting. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she didn't even seem to be moving to breathe.

And yet for all of her youth and her simplistic plainness that wasn't quite pretty but was definitely welcoming, Damen could hardly bring himself to look at her. Even meeting her gaze flashed that hateful image into his mind that he doubted he would ever, ever forget.

Swallowing, Damen licked his dry lips. His tongue felt as similarly dry, as though parched. When he spoke, it was at first in a croak before it strengthened. "What you showed me… that was what would have happened? If I hadn't taken Auguste's life, that would have been what happened?"

The oracle stared for a long moment with unblinking eyes, and it was for the unwavering stare she affixed upon him that Damen knew suddenly that, though a young woman she appeared, the power of prophecy used by kings for generations that resided within her made her something else. Then she tilted her head slightly. "It was an alternative, yes."

"That _would_ have happened?" Damen persisted. He didn't know why, but he felt the desperate need to know.

"I do no know what it is you saw, Akielon King," the girl said quietly, a touch of huskiness in her voice. "I simply turned you in the direction that you would step to perceive the answer to your question. But," she shifted slightly as Damen opened his mouth to speak and he respectfully fell silent. "It is _an_ alternative. Not the only one, but a likely happenstance."

"There are others?" Damen asked.

"There are always others. Countless possibilities, and some more likely than others."

Damen stared, meeting the oracle's unblinking gaze before slowly dropping his own to his hands where they rested in his lap. He didn't fully understand what had happened, nor what she meant. A likely possibility? There were more? He didn't understand that at all.

But it almost didn't matter. It almost didn't matter at all. "I didn't save him," he said detachedly. "I wasn't the one who killed Auguste, but that didn't mean he was saved."

"No," the oracle said, "it doesn't."

Damen swallowed thickly, the sting in his eyes returning. "It was worse. It was so much worse and it all ended… it all ended _so much worse_."

"Oftentimes they alternatives do, yes."

"He died," Damen said, and his throat clamped shut for a moment as he no longer thought of Auguste. "He died. and there was nothing I could do about it. He hated me, and then he died."

"In that life, yes."

Damen lifted his gaze towards the oracle's once more. "I so terribly wanted to erase the wrong that I'd done. But it did no good at all. It… it only made everything worse."

Despite his age, amd despite that he was old enough to be the oracle's father, Damen felt like a child for his confusion and pain. Even more so when the girl bowed her head in a nod, her expression solemn. "Sometimes it does. Sometimes the reality of what we believe to be so inadequate is in fact the best of a poor spread of possibilities."

"Then no option would have been better?" Damen asked.

"I didn't say that."

"I could never have saved Auguste?"

"I didn't say that either. Merely that what was seen was a possibility more probable than others."

Damen pressed his lips together. _More probable._ If it was the most likely of the 'poor spread', then Damen didn't want it. He'd been wracked with guilt for years, longing for nothing if not to erase what he'd done and to wipe clean the scar that he himself had inflicted upon Laurent, to remedy the wrong and fix it all even as he knew was impossible. But if this was the alternative…

 _Is it selfish of me, to rather I was the one who killed the person who meant the most to him in the world, just so I can have this?_ Damen closed his eyes as the horror of what he'd experienced – the years, the possibilities, the _other_ – was overwhelmed by a resurfacing of reality. Memories of how they'd met, sorry as they were, and all that had followed. More memories of the respect that had grown and then blossomed into love, the alliance forged and the peace built. Regardless of how long it would last, what existed between Akielos and Vere as Damen and Laurent had built was real peace.

It was selfish, perhaps. Perhaps it truly was selfish of him to cling to that rather than long to erase his wrong. But Damen knew in that moment that he wouldn't trade it for the world. Even if it meant killing Auguste once more, he would do it. He would, because he couldn't give up what he had.

How could he face Laurent like this, knowing what he did? Damen didn't know, for the guilt would always remain. A comprehending guilt, an understanding of himself, but guilt all the same.

"There is no wrong in choosing the lesser of two evils," the oracle said, her murmured words interrupting Damen's thoughts and drawing his eyes open and towards her once more. "And given time, perhaps even the chosen evil does not seem quite so dark."

Damen didn't really understand what she meant. Her words seemed far too wise for such a young woman, but he didn't question it. She wasn't really a young woman at all, but the oracle of Delpha. Her words were spoken from the gods.

"I wouldn't choose otherwise," Damen murmured, squeezing his eyes closed. He blinked them open again with a struggle. "Given the chance again, I wouldn't. I'd do it all again. All of it."

The oracle bowed her head. "I know you would."

"I don't think he'll ever forgive me for that."

Damen didn't know why he was speaking to the girl as he was. It wasn't like she knew. It wasn't like she could possibly understand what drove his words and sparked a pang of pain and longing within him. She'd said she hadn't seen what Damen saw so she couldn't understand.

And yet, at his words, the oracle tipped her head to the side contemplatively. She turned her gaze slightly as though considering a distant figure, though nothing but the temple pillars stood within her sights. When she spoke, it was in a murmur that seemed more to herself than to Damen. "Oftentimes, we perceive the need for forgiveness where none exists. It is fruitless to grasp for something that is utterly unobtainable and will only lead to endless distress in the pursuer."

"Then…" Damen had to swallow around the renewed tightening in his throat. "Then it's impossible? He'll never forgive me?"

Until that moment, Damen didn't realise that was what he longed for so dearly. He didn't realise that it was that which he'd needed, which drove him to Delpha in the first place. Laurent was not a forgiving person, and Damen had all but accepted that forgiveness for his actions so long ago would never be given. He'd sought solace in an alternative that was just as unobtainable.

And yet, even as understanding settled upon him, the oracle turned her gaze back towards him and spoke in a soothing murmur. "I did not say that. Just that sometimes we do not realise when it exists no longer." She tipped her head back in the opposite direction like a watchful bird, regarding Damen with dark, unreadable eyes. "How do you know you have not already obtained what you so desperately seek?"

Damen didn't know. He didn't understand how the oracle could even say that, how she could make such assumptions, even with the hands of the gods directing her voice. So he didn't speak another word. He didn't say anything as he sat for an indiscernible time longer, his limbs finally regaining the strength they had seemingly lost and the sweat drying on his skin. Then, finally, he rose to his feet and, with a low bow to the oracle, took himself from the temple.

Only as he started down the steps did Damen even remember Nikandros' had accompanied him. He remained still, seated in wait upon the steps with his elbows propped on that behind him and legs extended down to the next. He glanced up at Damen at the sound of his approach and immediately straightened.

To Damen's relief, Nikandros didn't ask questions. He didn't prod or even adopt an expression of curiosity, but simply waited for Damen to speak. After a long pause, Damen obliged. "I think I've got what I came for."

Nikandros waited for him to extrapolate, but when Damen remained silent he spoke. "You got the answer to your questions?"

"To _a_ question," Damen murmured, "and I'm not even sure it was wholly an answer."

"So what good does that do for you?"

Damen drew a deep breath that he released in a gush. "I think… that maybe I might just understand a little more. I hope."

Nikandros regarded him sceptically, but he didn't object to the assumption. Instead, he simply nodded and rose to his feet. "I won't pretend to understand what that means. I don't think it's my place to know."

"If it makes you feel any better, I don't think I have much of an idea myself."

A small smile touched Nikandros' lips, just visible beneath the vibrant light of a full moon overhead. "Kings aren't supposed to admit their ignorance."

Damen chuckled. Heaviness weighted him, but it was of a distinctly different sort to what had afflicted him before. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about it, but would be certain to explore it further. "So long as you don't proceed to preach that ignorance to my soldiers then I think I'm safe."

"You're lucky I'm so loyal," Nikandros laughed in reply.

"I am at that."

"So were return? You're satisfied?"

Damen shook his head. "I don't think men were made to ever be satisfied."

"That's very philosophical of you."

Damen chuckled once more. Heavy or not, he felt paradoxically lighter too. "Maybe I am." Drawing another deep breath, he shunted the residual darkness of his memories from his mind, the stain that he doubted would ever leave him hidden beneath a draped veil. The oracle's words were those he would think over long and deeply, but not yet. Now, he had a more pressing concern. "I make for Marlas, Nikandros. Don't feel obliged to join me."

Nikandros studied him intently before replying slowly. "You think he'll be alright with you coming?"

"I'm not giving him a choice," Damen said. _I just want to see him, no matter what_. Suddenly, being assured that Laurent truly was alive was of paramount importance.

Nikandros huffed out a sharp breath. "Well, on your head be it. I'd rather you than me."

"Of course you would," Damen said with a smile as he started down the temple steps. He wasn't surprised in the least when Nikandros followed alongside him.

They departed for Marlas before sunrise.

* * *

Though he might request it of Damen, Laurent never came to the Fields of Marlas alone. He was a king, and as such, all due protection was to be provided to him. Even so, there was barely a skeleton of soldiers to offer that protection, and as Damen and his own entourage, Nikandros in tow, passed the keep at a sedate trot, it was to find every one of those soldiers sitting in the lazy yet equally watchful kind of wait of attendants without their charge.

Damen paused as he drew alongside them, his eyes grazing over and then settling upon Jord. The captain of Laurent's personal guard, Damen had grown to respect him years ago and develop a strange camaraderie with him. Many of the sights the oracle had unwittingly shown him were fading as though they truly were a dream, but Jord's visit to his cell wasn't one of them. Some memories Damen didn't think he ever would forget. He couldn't, and even if they hurt he didn't want to.

Swinging himself down from his horse, Damen approached the man who had become his friend and offered him a small smile. With all due respect, but with similar recognition of friendship, Jord rose to his feet and met him halfway to the little camp of soldiers.

"Your Majesty," he said with a slight bow of his head.

"Jord," Damen replied. Even knowing that Laurent wasn't there, he spared a glance over Jord's shoulder. "He's not here?"

Jord shook his head and gestured out towards the fields, the undulating hills hiding all that would have been visible at further than a hundred paces. "He left this morning, but I've not seen him since."

Damen knew Laurent was more than capable of looking after himself, and similarly that he likely took himself from the protective gazes of his men more often than even Damen knew. But in that moment, he couldn't help but feel uneasy. Maybe it was simply his memories from his time with the oracle rising to the forefront of his mind, but Damen wanted to know where Laurent was. He needed to know he was safe. "He usually wanders off by himself?"

Jord being Jord saw through Damen's question for what it was. His lips twitched in a slight smile. "When the king wants to be alone, it is often wisest to let him be."

Damen offered his own smile in return. "I expect you've experienced the repercussions of not allowing just that before?"

"On occasion, yes. When I'm foolish enough to be persistent."

"Foolish or protective?"

"A little bit of both, I think. They're all but interchangeable when if comes to him."

Damen could only agree with that. Agree, and also recognise that Laurent wasn't alone with his equivalency; Damen was often of a similar mind. Being a king didn't often allow him many privacies, and certainly not out in the field.

Turning from Jord, Damen strode away from the small camp on foot. Nikandros called a curious, "I take it you don't want us to come with you?" after him, and Damen only raised a hand in acknowledgement before lengthening his stride. Within moments, the sounds of Damen's men drifting into the encampment of Laurent's and making themselves comfortable were lost to distance.

The day wasn't yet warm enough to be uncomfortable, and likely wouldn't be for some weeks yet, but neither was it cold. Damen strode at a leisurely yet pronounced pace up one incline and down the next, his direction unerring as he remembered the first time he'd been to Marlas with Laurent. He didn't think it much of a leap to find him at the little rise and outpost that he had that first time, and was rewarded when, after a time longer than it had taken that first visit, he caught sight of him.

And paused.

Damen couldn't help himself. He felt both that it had been barely any time at all and also far too long since he'd seen him, and in the glow of the rising sun, Damen was captivated. He sat with legs extended and crossed before him, arms propped behind him and head tipped back slightly, eyes not quite closed as they turned towards the expanse of field that had once been the sight of a great battle yet now held not a trace of what had passed in the region. He was beautiful, from the vibrant gold of his head that seemed to radiate light like the sun itself to the pale smoothness of his skin, his angular features and the elegant casualness of his pose.

Damen would never grow tired of looking at Laurent. Even as a cold statue that he still disliked the sight of, he was beautiful. When he'd been the cruel master of a slave desperately and redundantly attempting to keep his identity hidden, he had been constantly reminded of his perfection. And this time, when Damen stared upon him, he saw Laurent as he'd been when they'd first met in the halls of the Veretian palace, or the more recent first time when he'd seen him as a boy in the fragile beginnings of forging himself into steel.

Damen could have stared forever, and would have been perfectly satisfied to do just that. But he didn't. Even satisfied, he wanted to speak to Laurent. To touch him. To know he was real and…

To ask.

With Damen's approach, Laurent didn't move. He didn't glance towards him, nor even acknowledge his arrival until Damen stopped at his side. When he did, it wasn't to turn his gaze up towards him but to murmur in a voice not quite sharp but definitely pointed. "And what exactly would you be doing here?"

All of it, Laurent's tone, the blankness of his expression, the way he deliberately denied glancing in Damen's direction, was so achingly familiar as to squeeze like a vice around Damen's chest. His words and tone were disregarding, and yet even that was alright. Even that was acceptable, for it wasn't hateful, and in that casual boredom, Damen heard a hint of what he hadn't been able to make out in any of the instances of their meetings in the alternate life he'd witnessed. It was expected, because of the week and the reminder Marlas provided, but even so. Even with the mourning that Laurent fell into in annual bouts, the touch of acceptance, or recognition, the fondness, even, was definitely there.

Stepping forwards, Damen lowered himself until he was sitting alongside Laurent. He extended his legs out beside him, the bareness of his knees and calves in sharp contrast to the long, dark boots and immaculate leggings of deep blue that were Laurent's customary uniform. He allowed himself to shift into a comfortable position before replying. "Do you want me to go away?"

"After all the fuss you just made with getting yourself comfortable? That would truly be a waste."

A smile tugged at Damen's lips again. "It would be, but I wouldn't deny your request if you'd ask it of me."

Damen watched at Laurent turned his gaze towards him. Just a sidelong glance from the corner of his eye, not quite turning his head. Then he dipped his chin slightly. "I know you wouldn't."

"And if you really wanted the privacy then I wouldn't deny you that, either."

"I know that, too." Then Laurent fell silent. He didn't send Damen away.

They didn't speak for a long time. The sun climbed into the sky as silence reigned. It was a comfortable silence that wasn't disrupted by the echo of a battle long passed, a battle Damen had experienced not once but twice. and carried with it regrets that he would never been able to shake. Damen wondered if Laurent heard the cries too, then scolded himself for being foolish, because of course Laurent did. There could be no way he would be deaf to the sounds of battle and the cries of fear and pain and triumph and anger after he too had experienced it. Those moments held as much weight for him as they did for Damen.

 _Does he relive it every time he comes here?_ he wondered. The thought triggered the usual flush of guilt within Damen, except that this time it was different. It was different because he might regret it for what it had done to Laurent, but he would never want it to have gone differently. Damen knew what the most likely alternative was, and it was unacceptable.

"I'm sorry," he found himself saying, and this time it wasn't just spoken with regret for Auguste. It was a apology for his selfishness, that he didn't want the past to change. That he was relieved that the only blow that had lasted from his actions was the loss of a brother, for what had followed and grown from it was so much more and Damen didn't regret that at all.

"I'm sorry for what I've done," he continued. "I can never be more sorry for what it was done to you and the pain it has caused you. And I understand that I'm likely the last person you'd want to see right now, but I just wanted to be with you." He glanced at Laurent, and though Laurent didn't turn towards him, Damen knew he was listening. "You were alone for a long time, Laurent, and not only because you had to be, but because you forced yourself to be. I… I don't want you to have to be any longer, even if it means forcing my presence upon you when you don't want it."

Damen had to press his lips together at the end of his speech for the upwelling of emotion that flooded through him. His words were true, utterly honest, and he knew Laurent would have heard that sincerity because Laurent was far more perceptive than Damen could ever be.

Slowly, Laurent turned towards him. He blinked just as slowly once, then again, before something approaching a smirk touched his lips. "That was quite a tirade. Are you satisfied for having spoken? Relieved, perhaps, now that you've got it off your chest?"

Damen couldn't help but snort, shaking his head, and a burst of laughter slipped through his lips before he could stop himself. Rolling his eyes, he turned his gaze back out towards the fields. "Only you would spit in the face of an admission that was spoken with such difficulty."

"Difficulty? It hardly seemed difficult. Quite the contrary, I think it's been long in coming. Has it been building up?"

"You don't have a tactful bone in your body, do you?"

As Damen glanced towards him once more he saw, Laurent's eyebrow rise, a twitch niggling at the corners of his lips. "You're only just realising that now?"

Damen chuckled once more, shaking his head. "No. No, I think I discovered that some time ago." He fell silent, and they both resumed staring and watching – reliving, if only detachedly. When Damen spoke once more, he found his voice had quietened, hushed with that detachedness. "You're not going to send me away, are you?"

"If I ordered you away, would you leave?"

"I would."

"Don't lie, Damen. We both know the truth of that matter." Laurent didn't quite sigh but Damen heard it anyway. "I knew it would only be a matter of time before I turned around one morning and simply found you alongside me for this journey."

Damen turned towards Laurent incredulously. "You were waiting for me to come?"

"Quite frankly, I'm surprised it's taken you this long. I didn't expect you to hold to such boundaries."

"But you… you told me not to."

"And you've always been so good at following the directions and requests of others?"

Damen stared at Laurent's profile. He was given the impression that Laurent was very deliberately ignoring him, resisting the urge to glance his way, but he didn't care. Time and time again he'd asked, and Laurent had told him no. Not heatedly, but with a simple refusal, as though Damen had asked his thoughts on the weather. Damen had suspected it was a façade, that the casualness of his tone was veiling his true disinclination for Damen's accompaniment, but…

_Could I have been so wrong?_

Laurent seemed to have heard Damen's words when he continued in a quite voice devoid of his usual hint of condescension, mockery, or teasing jest. Thoughtfulness took its place, and though he regarded the fields, it was very clear that he spoke to Damen. "You seem to be under the misconception, Damen, that you have to apologise for something. Which you do, again and again, and never seem to think it's enough." With a slight turn of his head, Laurent shifted his wide, blue-eyed gaze towards Damen and fixed him with a stare. It was enchanting, and for the second time, Damen saw the young boy he had been, albeit without the beginnings tatters of shredded innocence so pronounced in his gaze. "I'm never going to forget, but you seem to believe that my resistance to forgetfulness means that I haven't forgiven, either."

Damen felt his throat close over. It was a struggle to swallow, but he managed after two attempts. "You don't forgive people. Ever."

"Not usually, no."

"Not ever."

Laurent's eyebrow rose once more, yet somehow his face softened. "Well then, in this case, I suppose you're exceptional."

A rush of wonder and something approaching pained relief flooded through Damen as the truth rose before him and presented its beautiful face. The oracle had been right. Damen hadn't truly believed it, but she was. And Damen had been a fool, blind and fearful and clutching to the past as he'd been. When he considered it, maybe it was as much punishment of himself that he clung to his guilt as it was disbelief that Laurent could ever forgive him.

It was as though a dam had been punctured and the heaviness that had been riding upon Damen's shoulders for years dissipated.

Turning towards Laurent, Damen reached for him. He didn't care that they were in the midst of reminiscing about a brutal and painful past. Damen reached towards Laurent, cupped a hand around the back of his head, and drew him towards him. In a heartbeat, he was pressing a deep kiss upon him, sinking into his lips and closing his eyes to the beauty of the seemingly offhanded gift he'd been given.

Laurent rarely resisted open displays of affection so long as he accepted the first touch, so Damen wasn't truly surprised when he turned towards him and looped an arm around Damen's neck in return. It was all the more heartbreakingly beautiful because Damen had missed it so dearly, could recall in starkly each moment through his reliving of alternate possibilities when a different Laurent had turned a flatly hateful eye upon him before turning aside and disregarding him completely. Damen remembered the distance, the coldness, the horror of open wounds blood and pale skin stained with blood, so vividly he ached. That ache only made each touch, the warmth of Laurent's lips, the press of his chest against Damen's as, all the more beautiful.

They sunk into one another, and at some point, Damen curled around Laurent until he had him folded beneath him, their limbs threading around one another in a tangle. The caress of Laurent's tongue upon his own, the kiss of breath that grazed his lips, the taste of his skin as Damen peppered his jaw and neck before rising to his mouth once more… it seemed an eternity since Damen had experienced such wonders. Those wonders became all the more fragile and cherished with the realisation that he might not have had them at all. With a final, fierce kiss, Damen wrapped his arms around Laurent in an awkward embrace and simply held him.

"I take it some epiphany of sorts has spurred you into this," Laurent murmured as Damen pressed his forehead into his shoulder. They lay awkwardly against one another, and Damen reluctantly accepted the need to half roll off of Laurent so as not to crush him. Not that Laurent seemed to mind. Not that he seemed to care, or was even inclined to object.

"I supposed you could say that," Damen replied, dropping his lips onto the side of Laurent's neck once more. "I _am_ sorry. You understand that, don't you?"

Laurent shifted so that when Damen raised his gaze to his face it was to meet his darkened gaze and an expression of fond exasperation. "I do. I think I understand more than you do yourself for how often you've told me."

"Well, I am."

"I know."

"And I'll never stop being sorry." _Even if I wouldn't change it_.

"I know that too," Laurent replied, and to Damen, it felt almost as though he were accepting his unspoken words too.

"And I love you," Damen found himself saying. "I think I love you more than the world."

A slow smile spread across Laurent's lips that was soft and almost as sweet as awakening upon a glorious morning. The gentleness that he wore at no other time, welled forth. "I know," he said simply, before he lifted a hand to the back of Damen's head and drew him into another deep kiss.

Around them, the fields of Marlas resounded with the ghosts of the past, with memories that hadn't died and likely never would. In that moment, however, Damen was content with the understanding they weren't the only ones he would hold of that place, and that for once, the past didn't pain him quite so deeply. He couldn't change it and might not want to, but he would spend every minute of his future making up for the wrongs he'd made.

And, Damen thought, that it wasn't nearly so bad.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, this is the final chapter! Thank you so, so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. I'm sorry if it perhaps felt anticlimatic or anything, but this is simply where it felt like this particular story ended, so... I've just read so many stories and headcanons about Damen not killing Auguste and everything being perfectly wonderful thereafter, but to me... I have speculations for otherwise.
> 
> I hope you liked this speculation. Please let me know your thoughts with a comment; I can't even express how absolutely, wonderfully appreciative I am of you beautiful people who've already commented. Bless you, and I'd love to hear from you!


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